Forest King
by Atolm2000
Summary: Starts out in Special, then continues in NEXTera. Lina crosses paths with an unusual enemy how do you fight an entire forest?
1. Prologue

Prologue-The Walking Forest   
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Author's notes: This was/still is my longest finished fanfic; This chapter is Slayers Special, the rest of it is standard Slayers (NEXT era).   
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"You know, Naga, it usually takes one week to make this trip. We've been on your 'shortcut' for a week and a half already, and we're not there yet. Is there something wrong with this picture, or is it just me?"   
Naga stopped just ahead of Lina, so the younger sorceress couldn't see the frustrated look on her face. Gathering her wits, she retorted, "Ah, my diminuitive companion, you miss my true purpose! There will doubtless be many bandits and mercenaries out to intercept this message, and by going around the usual route, we'll avoid them completely!" Naga then let loose with her infamous laugh, a high-pitched sound that echoed across the forest and terrified countless birds and animals.   
"Right. Whatever you say, Naga." It was clear that Lina was just humoring her rival and ersatz partner. "Just tell me we're close to a town where we can get some decent food, and I'll stop complaining." She glared sharply at Naga.   
Naga froze again; she realized she had no idea where the next town was. In fact, the road had stopped looking familiar two days ago…not that she would ever admit it.   
"Of course we're close to a town! The next town is right over that next hill. Did you really think I was lost?"   
Lina muttered, "Actually, yes." Naga turned slightly and asked, "What was that?"   
"Nothing, Naga. Nobody as intelligent as you would ever be lost, so I would never think such a thing." Naga noticed the heavy sarcasm, but knew it was the best she would ever get out of Lina.   
They continued on in silence until they crested the next hill and saw a small town with a wooden wall around it. Naga said, "See? There's the town, just as I said! And to think you ever doubted me!", and then laughed again. The guard in the town's watch tower had a short panic attack.   
The pair followed the path down to the gate of the town. The guard challenged them for their names and business.   
"I am the great Naga the Serpent, carrying a message for the Lord of Whitesel…and this is my junior partner, Lina." Lina growled and bit her tongue, glaring at Naga.   
"Whitesel? That's over fifty miles to the southwest…you're quite aways off the path."   
"Naga? Grellis, where the message is FROM, is WEST and SOUTH of Whitesel-what are we doing northeast of Whitesel?"   
"Oh, hush, I know what I'm doing."   
The guard looked down at them, slightly worried. "I've never heard of any Naga…but it's not safe for two ladies alone. Open the gate!"   
There were several ragged, armed guards just inside the gate. Only a few people were out in the street, and the spring sun illuminated weeds growing in unkempt flowerbeds. Many of the shops and taverns had closed signs, and it took Lina and Naga a while to find an open inn.   
Not much later, the table was spread out in a manner anyone familiar with them would've identified as "Lina and Naga's table"-two large stacks of empty, used plates, the taller stack by Lina; and an ale mug the size of a horse's feedbag in Naga's hand. The inn was empty except for Lina, Naga, and a couple of town drunks off in the corner.   
"So Naga, you still haven't explained why we passed Whitesel completely."   
"My dear Lina Inverse, it's perfectly logical!" Neither of them noticed the innkeeper surreptitiously sneaking out on hearing her name. "I took the 'shortcut' to avoid all the lowlifes waiting to ambush us. If we had come in through the front gate, we would've been jumped there. This way, we can circle around to the back, and they'll never be the wiser."   
"You're making excuses."   
"You're just too small-minded to comprehend my wonderful plan."   
"Sure, Naga." Lina rolled her eyes. Arguing with Naga got you nowhere, or Lina would've told the older sorceress exactly what she thought.   
As she was picking at the last plate of food, Lina noticed that they were being watched. The man was better dressed than many of the other townsfolk, but he twitched and glanced around nervously, like he was expecting something terrible any second. Streaks of grey were beginning to show in his brown hair, and the wrinkles in his skin held tight to his bones.   
"Are you Lina Inverse?"   
"Yes….why?"   
"The Bandit Killer and Dragon Spooker?" He was trying to reconcile the twiggishly built red-headed teenager, who couldn't have been taller than five foot four, or older than fourteen, with the formidable reputation attached to the name. She didn't even have any weapons that he could see, aside from the knife at her belt-it was either a really long dagger, or a really short sword, depending on how you looked at it.   
Lina glowered and snarled, "Not the Dragon Spooker thing again..." The nervous man cringed and stepped back. "So sorry. I'm the mayor of Hickory, and I would like to ask for your help, if you have time…"; he saw their interest waning, and started talking faster. "A large group of brigands moved in eight years ago. At the time, they weren't much of a problem, but since then, they've grown in numbers, power, and audacity. Soon, they will raze Hickory and start spreading. I beg you to stop them before they spread any further." Lina thought it over; they hadn't seen any sign of bandits on the road, and since Lina and Naga didn't look that impressive at first glance-but they did have some valuables in clear sight-they were usually harassed by any bandits or scoundrels.   
"I dunno…this message we're carrying from Grellis to Whitesel is supposed to be important, and we're already three days late…" Lina poked at her food, and went back to eating, basically ignoring the mayor.   
"I could pay you-we have five thousand gold we've been collecting to get help."   
Lina nearly swallowed her fork, and Naga fought to avoid choking on the ale.   
"Excuse me, I have to discuss this with my partner." Lina yanked Naga out of her chair and drug her off to the side, speaking in a hoarse whisper.   
"How much is Whitesel going to pay us for being glorified carrier pigeons?"   
"Eight hundred gold."   
"Why are we even discussing this?"   
"You're right." Naga turned and started speaking before Lina could think. "Of course the great Naga the Serpent (assisted by my Junior, partner, Lina) will help your town in its time of need!" Lina muttered, "What did you just call me?", but before she could start threatening Naga, the mayor cut in.   
"Oh, thank you!" The mayor looked ready to go on his knees in gratitude. "I'll get one of the local hunters, he'll fill you in on the details as soon as you get up in the morning!" He ran out of the tavern.   
They settled back down to finish their meal. Lina picked at what was left on her plate, but wasn't really eating.   
"One thing bothers me, Naga. Why would a dinky, middle-of-nowhere town like this be willing to pay five thousand gold just to get rid of some bandits?"   
Naga was relaxing, her feet up on the table, leaning back with her ale. "I wouldn't worry about it. They can't be as bad as that black knight and his army of ogres."   
"I hope not..the only reason we defeated Goldar was that he ticked off Lady Josephine!" Lina realized she had said the forbidden name, but it was too late, and they both had to supress a shudder at the memory of Lady Josephine. Even though Lina had never sensed any power from the noblewoman, she was more terrifying than any demon the pair had ever faced.   
Lina recovered fairly quickly. "At any rate, we'll hear more in the morning, so it's not worth worrying about that much."

The next morning, sharp at sunrise, Lina was awakened by a loud and persistent knock at her door. Whenever the knocking paused, it was replaced by a young man's voice calling, "Miss Lina? Are you there?" The boy couldn't have been more than 17 or 18.   
At first, Lina muttered, "It's too early for this..." and smashed the pillow over her head; she had just been sleeping soundly, and hadn't been planning on getting up at sunrise. The kid just wouldn't go away, however, so finally she yelled, "Alright, alright, I'm getting up. I'll be right out." It didn't take Lina that long to get going, and before the sun was completely over the horizon, she was in the hall.   
The boy was as much of a beanpole as Lina was-and Lina was constantly the target of Naga's teasing over her figure and bulk(lack thereof, on both...). He was constantly glancing around and fidgeting; he seemed uncomfortable indoors.   
"And you are?"   
"Oh, sorry-Feris. I live around here, and I spend a lot of time in the woods. I know where the bandit's base is."   
Lina shrugged drowsily. "Alright. Let's get Naga, and then we can hit the road." She added, muttering, "As much as I'd like to leave her here, she'd probably just follow us as soon as she woke up."   
Lina poked her head into Naga's room and shouted, "Rise and shine, Naga, we're moving out." Before there was any response from Naga, Lina shut the door and leaned against the wall in the hallway, still not quite awake. Within minutes, Naga emerged, and Feris looked like he had been hit on the back of the head with a board. Lina had grown so used to Naga's style of dress that, aside from the occasional wisecrack, she didn't even notice; she hadn't even thought of Feris's reaction, especially since he hadn't been warned. With the exception of Naga's purple-lined black cloak, Lina's undergarments covered more than Naga's entire black leather outfit. Naga didn't exactly have nothing to hide, to boot. It was a style Lina had once dubbed "The Bondage Queen of Darkness". Naga gave Feris one good, long, look.   
"So I take it this is our guide?" She stared down at him, unimpressed.   
"Yep. His name is Feris." Lina grabbed Feris's arm and started dragging him toward the stairs. "Come on, Feris, let's get going." Naga followed just behind. Feris didn't recover his wits until they were out of the inn; Lina finally relinquished her grip on his arm and asked, "The mayor said you'd fill us in on the details-so what's going on here?"   
"Uh, yeah, right, there was this old woodsman, had a stone house out in the woods a ways. Nobody really went out into that forest, there were a lot of creepy legends about it. He just lived out there, alone with his family, only came into town when he absolutely needed to. I used to go out there pretty often; I knew his son. Eight years ago, this group of bandits looking for a base moved in, killed the woodsman and his family, and turned their old stone house into a fortress. The townsfolk didn't even know they were there until they made their first raid, since they were so used to not seeing the woodsman or his family. After that, things went downhill. The bandits attracted more members and started getting bolder, attacking larger and more inhabited areas. Hickory was a rough-and-tumble town back then, and the townsfolk weren't exactly defenseless, so the town could fight back. As time went on, the bandits whittled away at us, until we didn't have that much left in the way of defense besides that wall. They've been building up, and we haven't been able to replace the people who could fight."   
Lina nodded. "What races are they, and do they have any mages with them?" "Mostly human, although there's a handful of werewolves who make up the worst of the bandits. As for magic, I haven't seen even a Flare Arrow spell from them, and I haven't seen any sign of any mages in all the years I've been watching them. Hickory is a backwater hick town, and you two are the first sorcerors of any kind to come out here since Dirus." That meant about twenty years. Mount Cocytus, to the north of Hickory through the forest, was on the very tail-end of the Kataart range; although it was pretty far from Kataart itself, it was close enough that Mazoku were an accepted part of life instead of a rare and incredibly unusual disaster. People around that mountain range were a paradox; they often had to put up with the occasional brass demon, so they were pretty tough, but on the flip side, the story of King Dirus II's fall two decades before was common knowledge, and nobody wanted to attract the attention of the more powerful Mazoku in the mountains. With a very cranky fragment of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, the demon king of the entire Mazoku race, living in the northern part of the range, only the bravest and most powerful of mages-or the most suicidal and foolish-would go near the mountain. Of course, Lina and Naga had been trying to avoid the mountains, but they were here now...   
"Doesn't surprise me. We weren't even planning on coming this close to the Kataart Range, and we're not exactly weaklings. Do the bandits keep much of an eye on this town?"   
"Oh yeah. They keep watch on us all the time. They're always trying to catch me, too. That's why I never go out the front gate; there's a secret tunnel under the wall that comes up in the forest not far from their fortress."   
"Sounds good. Well, Naga, we should get moving. We wouldn't want to waste too much time here, or we'll never get to Whitesel."   
The tunnel Feris referred to was barely big enough for him. Lina had no real problem with it, since she was slightly shorter than he was, but Naga had to duck to go through it. It was close and rough-carved right out of the soft blackish-brown earth.   
While Naga was muttering behind her, Lina asked, "Y'know, Feris, I heard there was some wierd stuff at Mount Cocytus-some kind of a legend. What was it?"   
"Before the War of Monster's Resurrection, there were supposedly dragons living there. The Mazoku attacked here in one of their early raids, and wiped out the dragons. But the dragons had some pact with the spirits of the mountain, and when the Mazoku tried to move into the mountain, it started spitting fire. They say that to this day the mountain burns with anger at the slaughter of the dragons."   
"Any truth to it?"   
"I dunno. It's an old volcano, I know that; I went up there once, and there was lava all over the sides. There's all kinds of strange caves through it, and it is a pretty strange place, so I guess there could've been dragons there." Lina wasn't sure about it either; the whole thing about the dragons and Mazoku, and the pact with the earth and fire spirits, was plausible enough. The problem was that, while lava would deter the weakest Mazoku- brass demons and lesser demons- anything stronger than that would laugh it off. Most Mazoku were impossible to hurt, short of powerful magic or some artifacts.   
The tunnel came up by a deer path. Feris led them off of the path, into a thicker part of the forest. Feris moved through the forest without a thought, or a trail; he would've been near-impossible to track. Lina didn't have a problem squirming through the worse patches of thicket, apart from unhooking her cloak from some persistent branches, but she could hear Naga muttering and snarling at the thorn bushes.   
Feris led them into a small "tunnel" of thorns, at the end of which was a pocket in the bramble thicket-almost a small, enclosed room. Even Lina had to crawl to get into it, and there wasn't room for her to stand. Feris stretched against the wall; he was comfortable enough in the cramped space. While waiting for Naga, Lina started picking thorns, burrs, and bits of branch out of her hair and clothes. When Naga finally came into the thicket clearing, she was scratched all over, with bits of plant and bramble all through her black hair and cloak.   
"See, Naga? Sometimes it's good to wear clothes."   
"Oh shut up. I don't need your sympathy, or your advice."   
Feris chuckled. "This place didn't seem so small nine years ago. Me and Darius-the woodsman's son-made this little clearing to have a place to hide out." Feris paused, with an odd, pained look; he buried it quickly, then pushed aside an area of the thicket "wall", and motioned for silence, whispering, "You can see the fortress through here. This is where I usually hide to spy on them." Lina and Naga crept closer, so they could see through the "window".   
The window looked down a short, very steep hill on a large clearing in the woods. There had clearly been a fortress there, at one time, but it was razed and levelled. A few walls and a tower were all that remained. Judging from the overgrowth, it had been that way for months, at least; vines and roots covered everything, and ivy crept up the remaining walls of the tower. There was no sign of any of the bandits.   
Lina said, "Feris...are you sure this is the place?"   
"Yeah! It wasn't like this a week ago..." He seemed just as confused as they were, if not more, and a touch frightened. Lina pushed the window open further, and jumped out. She half-slid, half-ran down the slope to the clearing. Naga and Feris followed soon after.   
Now that she was on the ground, Lina found a few chilling reminders of the bandit's presence-a skull, scathed clean of flesh; a partially skeletal hand reaching out of a large clump of vines and roots.   
The trio spread out across the clearing. Lina moved towards the tower, checking for signs of anything that could've caused the destruction and sudden overgrowth. She paused and leaned on the tower, then blinked as she felt melting ice dampening the glove on her hand.   
"Hey, Naga, come look at this."   
Naga came running over and examined the tower. "Ice-in this warm weather?"   
"Uh-huh. Magic. Looks like it was a large area, too."   
Naga stared closely at the ice and the area it covered. "Demona Crystal or Dynast Breath." She scanned the area, and continued, " There's no shards of wood or stone from a shattering effect, which rules out Dynast Breath."   
There was a very slight whimpering coming from the dilapidated "room" that had been in the tower. Lina Levitated up to the hole in the wall and landed lightly on the edge of the broken floor. Huddled in the corner was a werewolf in his beast form, his back to Lina. There was blood matted in his fur, his clothing was torn, and he was clutching a broken axe handle.   
"Hey, you, Wolf Boy." The werewolf scrambled around, panicking like a cornered mouse.   
"Who are you?"   
"Lina Inverse." She wasn't sure if she'd get a reaction or not, but if she could intimidate him right off the bat, it would make things easier for her.   
He gave a strangled, frightened cry. "LINA INVERSE!?! The Gods are destroying us, first the forest, now YOU! Please don't kill me, please don't kill me..." He descended into blubbering ans whimpering. Lina was getting really annoyed. She snapped, "Shut up, take a deep breath, and answer my questions before I Fireball you." He whimpered for a couple more seconds, took a few deep, whining breaths, and then held his breath until he calmed down enough to talk.   
Lina was still glaring down at the werewolf, as much as she could. "Now, what happened here and how long ago?" The werewolf opened his mouth, started to whine again, and clamped his muzzle shut until it stopped; then said, "Yesterday, early. The forest attacked us."   
"Uh-huh. The forest attacked you." Lina was very skeptical. To her knowledge, there was no magic that could cause plants to attack people. There had been some crazy theories, that if there were people with affinities for animals, there should be people with affinities for plants, but Lina had never seen or heard of any proof of that. Besides, simple affinity was the ability to communicate with the creature on a fairly low level, not change its entire nature and behavior to accomplish something it normally couldn't do-hence, why Naga rarely mentioned her affinity with inchworms and jellyfish-and plants didn't normally rise up and attack people.   
"Yes! The forest! Tree roots, vines, branches, grass, and those plant monsters..." He trailed off, staring around in fear. Ordinarily, Lina would never have considered believing his story, but he seemed a bit too scared to be lying. "Plant monsters? What kind of plant monsters?" If there was some kind of Mazoku or monster behind the attack, that would clear everything up nicely. They often had powers strange and alien to humans.   
"Big, hulking things, with claws as big as my arm and glowing green eyes! They had vines and thorns everywhere, and they chased down everybody the forest didn't get!"   
Lina glanced over her shoulder at Naga and Feris. "You two hear all that?" They nodded. She turned back to the werewolf. "You can get down from here, right?" The wolf nodded. "So get lost." He jumped down and started running, but before he was even halfway across the clearing, Lina yelled, "Wait."   
He froze at the edge of the clearing.   
"On second thought...you're coming with us." Feris stared at her in shock and said, "Why? He's one of the bandits!"   
"For one, he's an eyewitness to what happened here. Second, he's the only proof we have for the mayor that the bandits were wiped out. And third, whatever hit this place might come back for him when it realizes it didn't finish the job!"   
"I'm bait?", the werewolf whimpered.   
"That's right, furface. Now why don't we try to get a better idea of what happened here."   
They built camp right in the middle of the ruined fortress. Lina stuck close by the werewolf. As night fell, they built a campfire and settled down to watch. Lina was still keeping a close eye on the werewolf.   
"You got a name, Wolf Boy?"   
"Grrrr- Gareth. Do...do you really think the forest is gonna come back?" He was watching the trees around them, looking terrified. Naga decided it was time to quit sitting there and listening.   
"The forest never left! I can't believe you're buying this story, Lina. 'The forest attacked us', really!" Naga laughed. It was the first time Gareth and Feris had ever heard Naga laugh. The campfire grew silent as they both stared at Naga, dumbfounded that such a sound could've come from a human. They both moved closer to Lina, on the other side of the fire. Naga didn't even notice.   
"If the forest were going to attack, then why doesn't it attack us already?" She laughed again. Behind her, in the shadows between the trees, a pair of glowing green points appeared. Gareth scrambled to cower behind Lina, which was pretty hard, since Lina was barely a little over half his size.   
Naga noticed, and leaned over slightly, ranting at the wolf. "Don't tell me you're afraid that the big, bad forest is gonna get mad at me? Honestly, a grown werewolf like you!" Three more pairs of green lights appeared behind her. Lina was starting to get worried and said, "Uh, Naga, you might want to stop talking that loud..."   
"Oh, don't tell me you're getting afraid of 'the forest' too!"   
Five more pairs of green lights appeared, and the ones that had appeared earlier started to move out of the woods; they were big, hulking shapes that shambled slowly out of the forest.   
"Actually, Naga, I think I am." Naga opened her mouth to laugh, but a root shot up and wrapped tightly around her leg. Gareth was clinging to Lina's cloak, cowering and whining. If there was any hope of coaxing him out of his beast form, it was long gone. Feris was on his feet, a dagger in each hand; the daggers seemed to have come from nowhere. Lina cast a Flare Arrow to free Naga's leg. Naga turned to face the shapes shuffling out of the darkness.   
As the things came into the firelight, the group got their first good look at the plant-monsters. They were as tall at the shoulder as Feris. They crept on all fours, with two long front limbs, shorter hind limbs, and a small, amorphous "head" and "neck". They weren't animals, but rather walking masses of vines, loam, plants and fungus. The claws on the front limbs were made of sharp edged thorns almost a foot long. The only part of the creatures that wasn't plant matter was the eyes, two orbs in the shapeless head that were made of glowing green crystal. What they lacked in height, they made up in bulk; they were built low to the ground. Eight were coming out of the forest where they had first been spotted, and Feris pointed out two more coming from behind Lina.   
Lina yelled, "Naga, duck!" and incinerated two of them with a Fireball, Gareth still clinging to her cloak. Naga stood up again and cast a Freeze Lance, the spear of ice going easily over Lina's head and freezing a third solid. The emerald eyes of the two Lina had "killed" were lifted up in a knot of roots, and the creatures quickly reformed out of the forest floor. The creatures kept moving, and the roots beneath Naga stepped up their attack. Naga stumbled closer to the campfire and pulled out a burning piece of wood, warding off the vines with it. Lina caught this and called Feris closer to the campfire; none of the plants were coming within five feet of it. As Naga was peeling the last of the roots off her leg, she commented, "There's definitely a mage behind this. First, the ice, and now those golems..."   
Lina and Feris blinked; Lina said, "Golems? What golems?"   
"The plant monsters! Some twerp of a mage is hiding out there somewhere, using those green crystals as a focus to turn the forest debris into golems."   
Lina was impressed; usually, Naga didn't notice details that easily. "Wow. How'd you figure that out?"   
"You should know, Lina. I work constantly to create new and unusual golem spells, so of course I'd recognize one in action."   
"I just wish your new golem spells could work as well as this one does."   
"Oh hush. A couple mistakes, and you never let me forget it."   
Lina decided to change the subject. "So the crystals are the spell's focus, and all we have to do is destroy the crystals, right?" Naga nodded. "Right."   
A ball of ice hit the campfire from the forest, and in an instant the campfire was a spire of ice. It was a clear, moonless night, and the only real light came from the ring of crystal eyes. Lina called out a Lighting spell just as something burrowed out of the ground in the middle of the camp, shattering through the ice where the campfire had been. It superficially resembled a venus fly trap. The jaws were razor-sharp, rigid pieces, and vines ringed the base of the plant.   
Once everyone's attention had turned to the mantrap that had appeared in the center of camp, one of the golems jumped and pinned Naga under it. Lina caught it with a Fireball, and Naga scrambled away before it could reform. The mantrap caught Lina in its vines, and Gareth snatched one of the swordlike thorns from the reforming golem and started hacking at the vines. In the chaos, nobody noticed Feris running out of the clearing, being ignored by the golems and the forest alike.   
After freeing Lina, the trio retreated, and was soon cornered in the remnants of the wall by the tower. Lina said, "We need some breathing room...Explosion Array!" The ground under the clump of golems exploded upard, and Naga cast a hasty Raywing, lifting all three of them into the ruined tower. The golems were back on their feet quickly.   
Naga picked out a nice group of three golems and smiled. If this mage wanted to play with ice magic, she'd show him ice magic. "Supreme king of the frozen soul, grant me the power of your icy rage-Dynast Breath!" A spire of ice materialized around the golems, freezing them solid. The whole frozen spire then shattered, golems and all. On the plus side, it destroyed the crystals. On the down side, the trio had to duck and cover to avoid the ice shrapnel, and the force of the blast demolished the tower, dropping them on the ground.   
Lina yelled, "Naga! Why'd you cast that so close to us?!", but Naga didn't even answer.   
The golems made a quick and hasty retreat to the area around the mantrap. Gareth tried to sneak off, but Lina stomped on one paw and grabbed his sleeve.   
"Not so fast, Wolf Boy. Do you have any idea who's behind this?"   
"I just joined this group, I know nothing."   
"Something tells me you're lying." Her interrogation was briefly interrupted by Naga cackling and mocking the golems.   
"Ignore her and tell me the truth!"   
"Hrrrrr...there was this rumor around the camp that the old man that used to live here had a son, a real creepy kid."   
"Darius. Tell me something I don't know."   
"Well, after the band settled in here, wierd stuff started happening, and the people started whispering that the kid was haunting the place!"   
"Okay, now I think I understand." She looked up; the golems were starting to regroup. "Don't try anything funny, like running away." She walked out in front of Naga, facing down the plants. Hickory was somewhere behind her, so she didn't have to worry about collateral damage-not that it had ever bothered her before.   
"Heed me now, thou which is darker than dusk, heed, that which is more red than blood; in the name of that which has been buried in the bottomless abyss of time eternal, I summon thee, Master of the Ultimate Darkness; have no pity on the fools who stand in our way;" Two of the golems started moving towards her. Floating between her hands was an orb of flames and light, and ribbons of energy danced in the air around her. A sudden breeze had come up in the clearing. Naga backed away from Lina, knowing what was coming. "Infuse me with power, let your strength become mine; to wipe them from the face of this earth, to deliver unto them the ultimate doom-" One of the golems leapt at her. "Dragon Slave!" The ball of flames exploded forward into a blast that swept out past the edge of the clearing, off into the woods. The golem was incinerated in mid-leap. When the light and smoke cleared, there was a deep furrow cut into the land by the blast. There weren't even ashes of the mantrap or the golems.   
A blast of cold air enveloped Lina and Gareth from behind. Before the spell took effect, Lina only had time to hiss, "Shoot!", between her teeth. Demona Crystal was difficult to dodge when you were expecting it, and neither of them had been expecting it. The cold air swiftly crystallized, encasing both of them-still alive-in ice.   
Naga turned to face the caster. Perched on the remnants of the wall was a boy, maybe Lina's age, dressed in haphazard and ragged clothes. The boy jumped to the ground in front of the wall. The kid was good; he had taken Lina completely by surprise. Naga wasn't about to let him catch her off guard.   
"You're clever, and quick, but I don't think you can dodge this- Freeze Rain!"   
A sphere of ice appeared in the air, above and between the boy and Naga. Razor-sharp lances of ice began spraying out in all directions from the orb. Naga dove into the pit carved by Lina's Dragon Slave, but the boy had nowhere to run, trapped between the crumbled wall and the sphere. The lances chipped at the Demona Crystal until it shattered; before the ice dust had cleared, Lina drug Gareth into the crevice with Naga. The Freeze Rain's target was no longer a threat; trapped the way he was, it quickly left him crumpled in a heap on the other side of the globe...which wasn't going away.   
Gareth stared, wide-eyed, and asked, "What kind of a spell was that?"   
"One Naga created." Lina was used to Naga's failures by now, and didn't even show much of a reaction beyond a dull annoyance.   
The werewolf whimpered, "When's it gonna stop?"   
Lina glared at her partner. "Yeah, Naga, when's it gonna stop? Don't tell me you haven't fixed that spell yet..."   
Naga acted like it was all planned from the beginning. "Well, I still haven't changed its incredibly long duration..."   
"It's not fixed yet?!", Lina yelled.   
Gareth was looking clueless. "So...when's it gonna stop?"   
Lina was getting really ticked off. "Never, unless someone destroys that ball of ice!" She peeked out of the crevice long enough to send a haphazard Fireball at it, breaking off a chunk. In the end, it took three fireballs to destroy the sphere of ice.   
When the rain of ice lances stopped, everyone held their breath, and made sure it was really gone before coming out of the crevice.   
Lina scanned the now even more ruined ruins. The Dragon Slave had left a large scar on the land, Naga's Dynast Breath had leveled most of the remaining wall, their attacker was in a bloody, unconscious heap among the rubble of the wall, icicle lances from the Freeze Rain were in pieces everywhere, and Gareth was trying to sneak away. Lina dissuaded him by targetting a Fireball at the ground in front of him.   
"Going somewhere, Gareth?" She smiled innocently.   
"Grrrrr nope! Nowhere at all!"   
"That's good. If I though you were trying to sneak away, I might have to do something drastic like Explosion Array!" Lina made the threat with a bouncy, bright, cheerful tone that somehow made it all the more believable. Gareth's ears went flat against his skull and a whine escaped unconsciously.   
"Good boy. Now come back by the rest of us like a good little werewolf." Gareth slunk back to the middle of the clearing.   
Naga was also surveying the area. "He's not the only one who split."   
"What do you - Where's Feris?"   
"I don't know. I haven't seen him since that golem jumped me."   
"Aw, great, now where'd he get to...uh-oh..." Lina stared nervously at the blasted area from the Dragon Slave.   
"Rr, I think I saw him running away...but then I had to cut you out of that mantrap's vines."   
Naga said, "So, he ran away. We'll take it up with the mayor when we get back." She turned and started to head back for Hickory, until she realized that Lina hadn't moved.   
"Lina? Aren't we going to go collect our reward?"   
"Later. Something funny is going on here. I've never heard of mantraps this close to a town, and Feris didn't strike me as the type to run away like that. Besides, how'd he get past all those golems and the plants in the forest?"   
"You don't plan on traipsing through the woods at night looking for him?"   
"Yeah, people disappear all the time, especially people that go out alone!" Lina and Naga were staring at Gareth in an instant; Lina commented, "Gee, Gareth, I thought you didn't know anything about this area!", in that sugar-sweet, "I bet you think that just because I'm younger than you, I'm dumb, don't you?" tone she often used for threats and interrogation. Gareth's ears when flat again, and he cringed as he realized his mistake.   
Lina walked right up to Gareth. To an observer, she would've seemed a lot more threatening if she didn't have to stare up at the werewolf, but Gareth was terrified all the same. "So what else did you forget, Wolf-boy?"   
"Uh, rrrrr, well, uh..." Gareth was fidgeting, trying to find some way out.   
"Start from the beginning."   
"When we moved in here, we were looking for a place nobody would go, to make a base. We heard about this forest, an' how lots of people had vanished an' nobody would go in. Well, we moved in, and pretty soon we were disappearing out there. We sent out a bunch of scout parties into the areas where people had disappeared, and only a couple of the scouts came back. They said there was a whole colony of mantraps out there, an' it was spreading, like some big termite colony. We started trying to kill them off, since they were a problem. At first, it went okay, but then the wierd stuff started happening. After that, it wasn't just the mantraps attacking people, but the whole forest! Pretty soon we were in an all-out war with the forest, an' we were losing. We holed up here, kinda under siege. For a week, things got real quiet, and then that attack yesterday hit out of the blue."   
Lina nodded. "So there's a whole colony of mantraps in that forest."   
"Hickory didn't hole up behind that wall just because of us."   
"Hmph. That wall isn't going to do them much good; the mantraps will just burrow right under it.", Naga commented.   
"And if one of them came this close to the town...", Lina hinted; Naga continued, "...then soon they'll be coming up in town."   
A vague, evil smile crossed Lina's face. "Y'know, Naga, I heard these things are least active at night."   
Naga nodded, getting the same kind of smile. "Then we should get going."   
Gareth whined. "You mean you're going out there at this time of night?"   
"Yep, we're going to do something about those plants.", Lina replied cheerfully.   
"You're crazy! I'm leaving."   
"You're coming with us.", they said in unison.   
Gareth debated which was worse-staying with them and being eaten, or running and ticking them off. He decided ticking off the Bandit Killer and her partner was worse, and meekly followed as they went into the forest.

Feris gave them a couple minutes to leave before he dropped out of a tree on the edge of the clearing. He dashed over to Darius, checked for a pulse, then breathed a sigh of relief when he found one. He did the best he could, using a mixture of simple bandages and a few weak healing spells to take the edge off of Darius's wounds. He wasn't much with magic, and it took a lot out of him, but he managed to take care of the worst of the damage; it wasn't like he had studied. The healing spells were the strongest magic he could manage.   
It took Darius a couple hours to come around, and Feris stood over him the whole time. The second Feris noticed he was awake, Feris started, "What's gotten into you all of a sudden? Attacking the bandits, I can see, but you could've just left it at that. You didn't have to go after those two."   
Darius groaned weakly. "No, don't pass out again, don't pass out! I'm just trying to help you-so why did you attack them?"   
"Weren't going away...would've found the colony."   
"Probably so, but a direct assault like that wasn't the wisest approach; you could've waited, and started harassing them-nothing too threatening, just enough to get them frustrated enough to leave! It isn't like the mantraps couldn't move out of the way if they came too close."   
"They didn't look like much..."   
"The mayor wouldn't have hired them to take on the bandits if they weren't fairly powerful-and besides, I thought you'd know better than to attack the Dragon Spooker!"   
Darius looked blank at the title, and sat up a little. "Who?"   
"Lina Inverse!"   
"Never heard of her..." He slumped back down onto the damp grass.   
"Wha? Oh, right, bookworm. That's what I've always been saying-you learn everything from books, and you miss little stuff like that. Tell me, how much do you know of events after Dirus's attack on Kataart?"   
Darius didn't respond; he had one arm draped over his face, so Feris couldn't even tell if he was still awake. Feris sat down near him. "Oh well...just be more careful next time, and maybe not so destructive."   
"Where...are they now?"   
Feris fidgeted. "Uh, well, they went further into the forest." He knew what Darius was worried about, and didn't want to tell him the whole truth; he was afraid of what Darius would do. If Darius went after them again, they'd probably try to make sure they finished him off this time.   
"Why did they head for the forest?" Darius pulled himself up so he was sitting, leaning against a piece of rubble. He was recovering fairly quickly, although he was trying to hide how badly he was really hurt.   
"I'm not sure. I think the werewolf said something about people disappearing, and they decided to investigate." He was intentionally feigning ignorance.   
"What! Then they'll find..." Darius scrambled haphazardly to his feet and stumbled toward the forest, using the ruins and various trees for support.   
"Darius, no! You're in no condition to face them, and even if you were, you'd be no match for them!"   
"They'll find...colony..." Darius kept going. Feris caught up with him quickly.   
"No you don't! You need to rest and recover. The colony can take care of itself." He caught Darius's arm and tried to stop him; Darius pulled loose and continued. Before Feris could catch him again, roots from the ground wrapped around his feet, holding him to the spot. They continued to hold him until long after Darius had vanished into the forest. He raced off after Darius, hoping he could track the young mage down fast enough to stop him.

At the same time, deeper in the forest, Lina, Naga, and Gareth were sidling slowly past a trio of mantraps. They were trying to avoid any conflict until they found the main colony. The plants detected movement and sound, so as long as they kept quiet and moved slowly, the plants wouldn't notice them.   
Lina was almost past the last plant when it changed position. They all froze, waiting for it to settle down, backs against the trees. While the plant was settling, Lina felt something small and damp creep onto the outside of her glove. It was probably a slug-and at that thought, panic started coming up. Lina started concentrating, trying to think of what it could be besides a slug-it could be a snail!...which was just a slug with a shell. She decided not to look. She refused to look. It moved up her glove slowly, coming through the fur ruff around her wrist. She clamped her eyes shut. The plant had settled down, and Naga was trying to think of a way to ask Lina to get moving without disturbing it. Lina held her breath. The little damp thing came out of the ruff and onto her arm. She cracked an eyelid and glanced down. On her wrist was a small, slimy gray shape, a little over half an inch long. It glistened slightly in the starlight.   
Lina shrieked and panicked, dancing away from the mantraps, which went absolutely nuts. Naga and Gareth dove out past Lina, but one of the vines caught Naga. Lina was still screaming and yelling, "Getitoffmegetitoffme!" Naga was struggling with the vine as the mantrap pulled her closer to its jaws. Gareth glanced back and forth between Lina and Naga, finally grabbing the vine and biting through it. The mantrap shot out a few more vines; Naga flattened against the trees ten feet away, and Gareth pressed against a curtain of vines at the end of the path. It took Lina a few minutes to calm down, at which point Naga yelled, "What was that all about? You nearly got us killed!"   
"A slug...a slug crawled on my hand..." Lina was panting, staring back at the trees with a terrified look.   
"A slug? You attract those plants because of a stupid SLUG?!? You and your moronic phobia..." Gareth stared in shock, and said, "Lina Inverse...is afraid of slugs?'   
"Yeah, Furface, I have a problem with slugs. Say one word about it, and you're toast." Lina was back to her usual, nitro-glycerin tempered self.   
"Urp-right...." The plants were still agitated; Gareth scrunched up against the vines a little closer.   
"What're you afraid of, Wolf Boy? It's not like they could reach us now, and they won't burrow to get something this close to them." Lina waved a hand past one of the vines playfully; it twisted and contorted to catch her, unsuccessfully. "And if you think this little clump is bad, wait 'till you see the main colony! It's going to have a whole bunch of mantraps that have gone to seed, and a main plant the size of a small building!"   
Gareth's eyes grew wide, and he grasped at the vines tighter. They tore out, dropping Gareth past the curtain. He fell down into a large clearing; he was right in the middle of a ring of mantraps. More mantraps filled most of the clearing. Some had yellow brushes sprouting just above the leaves around the base, others had dull, dark brown pods in place of the yellow brushes. In the center of the clearing there was a huge plant, round and low, with a spray of leaves and vines ringing the bottom of a bulbous green body. All told, the clearing held maybe fourty mantraps.   
When Gareth fell into the clearing, seven of the plants snapped their jaws around to face him. Gareth froze, barely even breathing. Lina leaned through the hole in the curtain of vines and yelled, "Way to go, Gareth! You found the main colony!", in a tone Gareth found entirely too cheerful and flippant. "Hold still for a sec.", she continued, and aimed a fireball at the ground near him. As it exploded, it killed most of the plants that were threatening him, seriously damaged the two survivors, and singed Gareth. Gareth began to wonder which was more dangerous-the mantraps, or Lina's "help".   
She kept yelling down at him. "That big thing in the middle is the central plant. It can control all the plants in this area, to some extent, and keeps them from competing for space and food. It also moves all the plants that are going to seed to a safe place like this. It's like an ant colony." Gareth stared at the huge green bulb in the middle of the clearing and muttered, "Right. Ants."   
"Oh, and Gareth-I'm going to clear out this place with a Dragon Slave, so you probably want to move." Gareth panicked and scrambled back up the short slope. As Lina began the incantation, Naga and Gareth found places behind her where they would be out of the way of the three mantraps back on the path. The wind and light agitated the plants, which tried to grasp and snap at the energy ribbons.   
When the explosion came, it seemed almost anticlimactic. After they had gone to seed, mantraps couldn't burrow, and the three behind them were more concerned with snatching at the energy created by the spell. As the dust cleared the clearing was empty. The flames had cleanly incinerated all of the plants.   
Lina stepped back a few feet and slumped against a tree. Naga had been expecting this; Lina didn't often use the Dragon Slave twice in one night like this, and spells that powerful took a lot of energy from the caster. Gareth actually looked worried.   
"Hrrr-is this normal?"   
"Yeah, I don't usually cast that spell twice in a night like that." She glared up at him, suddenly threatening. "But don't get any ideas, I can still blast you into next week."   
Naga walked out into the center of the path, barely out of reach of the three mantraps. "I don't know about you, but I don't feel like sneaking past these plants again."   
"Give me a minute and I'll fireball them."   
"No need-Freeze Cutter!" A blade of ice spun through the air ahead of Naga, neatly cutting the stalks of all three plants. "Well, Lina? Ready to head back to town and collect our reward?"   
"You read my mind. Let's get going. And Gareth-" Lina didn't even turn, just held up one hand, conjuring a fireball. The werewolf was trying to slip off into the forest while their backs were turned. "Don't even think about it."

Barely an hour before sunrise, the trio drug out of the forest into sight of Hickory. Lina was looking forward to a good meal and a real night's sleep as she scanned the wall. She almost didn't recognize the drawn bows in time-almost.   
"Look out!", she yelled, and the trio hit the dirt as arrows rained off the wall, almost at random. Moments later, Lina was on her feet.   
"What's the big idea?! First you hire us to get rid of the bandits, now you're shooting at us? What gives?"   
The mayor leaned over the wall, just far enough that they could see him. "You're not fooling us any more with your act, missy-I don't know what those bandits are paying you, but you won't get away with it!"   
"Wha- act? You think we're working for the bandits? Where the heck would you get an idea like-" She noticed that Feris was standing right next to the mayor, and all the pieces fell together. "You little twerp! Double-crossing sneak! You just don't want anybody to know what happened out there!"   
"Enough of this, young lady. If you leave now, and never return, we'll let you go peacefully." Lina snarled, both hands clenched into fists, then turned harshly to Naga. Gareth was running off into the woods at a dead sprint.   
"Come on, Naga. These idiots aren't even worth the trouble of blowing up." The two sorceresses picked up and left, back to the main road to finish their original mission.   
  



	2. NANI?! The Plant Guy's Still Alive!

Forest King, Chapter 1   
*************************************   
Author's Notes: This *does* take place about 3 years after the prologue. Odd note - it was first posted on a school database - so it's written with the intent that someone who knows nothing about Slayers will understand it; it's vaguely intentional, but not completely.   
*************************************   
A Few Years Later   
Zelgadis noticed, over dinner, an unforeseen benefit of travelling with Lina and Gourry. Ordinarily, his inhuman appearance made eating in a restaurant uncomfortable, to say the least. Lina and Gourry's table manners, however, made starving wolves look prissy, so most of the wide-eyed stares and suspicious glances were directed at them instead of at the stone-skinned chimera. He was starting to think nothing could go wrong that week when he noticed that Amelia, normally cheerful enough to choke a Mazoku, was being unusually pensive and poking at her food.   
"Is something wrong, Amelia?", he asked quietly.   
"Oh, nothing...well...does anybody know where Mr. Xelloss has gone?"   
Mention of the self-titled "Mysterious Priest" dampened Zel's mood slightly. "What do you want to find him for?"   
"It's just that, in all the confusion, I never got a chance to thank him for saving Daddy from those Mazoku, and I haven't seen him since we left Seillune."   
"He'll turn up.", Lina said around a mouthful of food.   
"Proverbial bad penny.", Zel added, under his breath. It was true that Xelloss had saved Prince Philionel when Kanzeil and Mazenda were holding him hostage, and he was somewhat helpful once in a while; but more often, he was manipulative, obnoxious, and misleading. He also had yet to give any explanation for how he kept running into them, and by now, Zelgadis was convinced that Xelloss was following them. He was hiding something, for sure.   
"I guess I'll just have to remember next time I see him."   
Now Zel was the one getting quiet. Lina and Gourry were engrossed in their food, and didn't even notice the uncomfortable silence. Zel tried to think of something to change the subject, and realized there was one thing Lina hadn't told them yet.   
"Say, Lina-why are we headed this way? If we keep going, we'll go right up to the Kataart Mountains. With a Dark Lord out to kill you, are you sure it's a good idea to go that close to known Mazoku territory?"   
Lina didn't even stop eating as she talked. "I've been this way before. *mmf* Place up here, some wierd legends, *gulp* 'bout dragons leaving behind some magic to keep the Mazoku out of an area."   
Zel nodded. "So, you're hoping to use whatever they left behind against Gaav and his minions."   
"Right!"   
He considered asking a few more questions, then decided he'd rather wait until Lina was done eating. She was much easier to understand when she wasn't trying to talk around her dinner. Besides, disturbing her too much during a meal was asking for it.   
Amelia still hadn't quite learned that. "But if it's dragon magic, will we be able to use it?"   
"*Hmff* Just gotta hope."   
"Where are we going, exactly?"   
"Mount *gulp* Cocytus."   
Several of the locals moved two tables away. Now Zel was getting worried. Nobody else seemed to notice.   
"It seems the people here are slightly afraid of that place."   
"Whatever gives you that idea, Mr. Zelgadis?" Amelia had more than a few quirks to get used to, and referring to everybody as "Mr." Or "Mrs" was one of them.   
"All the locals who were sitting near us moved away when Lina said 'Mount Cocytus'."   
Lina cleared away the last plate. "Somehow, that doesn't surprise me. A lot of freaky stuff happened around there last time I was there. The worst of it shouldn't happen again, though; the guy responsible for it should be dead, and I've never heard of anybody else who could pull anything like that off."   
"Should be?" Zel glanced up; he didn't like that bit of uncertainty.   
"He got nailed with a pretty nasty ice spell. So, yeah, should be. There may still be a few mantraps hanging around, but nothing like what was there three years ago. The only problem we should have would be the volcano."   
Amelia and Zel looked very worried on that last word. Gourry was still finishing eating, and hadn't noticed yet. Amelia quietly said, "Um, volcano?"   
"Yeah, Cocytus is a volcano. Hasn't done anything since the War of Resurrection, though, so nobody expects it to erupt or anything."   
The innkeeper had quietly moved up to the table. "You said you were going to Cocytus?"   
Lina nodded. "Right through the forest."   
"You weren't planning on taking the road past Hickory?"   
"It's not like there's another one."   
"Don't go." He said it with complete urgency, and more than a little fear.   
Now Gourry had started listening. The whole table stared at the innkeep in silence.   
Lina stared suspiciously.   
"Why not?"   
"Hickory's not there anymore. The whole town vanished. A lot of the people that went to find out what happened vanished. There's nothing left there but a ghost town."   
Now Lina was getting curious. "Nothing left? The town seemed perfectly fine when I saw it two years ago...Well, that's just one more reason to go."   
"Right! We have to find out what happened to that town, in the name of Justice!" Amelia was backing Lina up with a look of complete determination. The innkeeper shook his head. "You're all crazy...you're not going to come back." He walked away quietly. 

It was before sunrise the next morning; the sky was still dark. The moon was almost full. Zel was sitting out front of the tavern, alone, staring at the stars and not really thinking about anything in particular, when he heard voices around the back door-the innkeeper, and someone else.   
"You know, pretty soon, people are going to start wondering who's living in that room. What am I supposed to say?"   
The other person didn't sound very old-probably no older than Zelgadis himself. Zel silently stood up and stepped over where he could hear better, but wouldn't be seen.   
"Tell them you're holding it for someone. It is the truth, after all." He seemed nervous.   
"Why do you have to be so sneaky about all this-coming in after nightfall, leaving before dawn, having meals left outside your door..."   
"I have my reasons. Anything new happen?"   
"You could just show up and see yourself."   
"That could get complicated. I've decided I like staying out of the way."   
The innkeeper huffed. "Well, nothing special..except that group of nuts headed for Cocytus Mountain."   
"Adventurers? Headed for Cocytus?" The other person sounded very interested.   
"Yeah, real oddball group. Little beanpole of a sorceress seems to be in charge-redhead, real short temper. Then there's this little girl, thirteen, fourteen I'd say, who's just plain strange; big swordsman, didn't seem too bright; and a creepy character who's not even human-scales on his face and all."   
"Any names?" He seemed to have an unhealthy interest in their group.   
"Hmm...well, I didn't really catch all of them...Lina,-" The other cut him off.   
"Lina? Lina Inverse?" He sounded slightly afraid.   
"I think."   
"Oh, no, this could be trouble...I'll be going now. Thank you." Zel ducked behind a horse trough. A slender figure wearing a blue cloak and hood slipped out of the alleyway and headed down the road out of town. Zel tailed him carefully, ducking from one hiding place to the next, until the strange man was at the edge of the forest. Here the figure broke into a quick sprint, and vanished quickly into the woods. Zel crept to the forest's edge, but didn't even find tracks. He considered going in after the figure, but decided it would be much smarter to warn the others and worry about it later. Going out after someone who obviously knew the area well in the middle of the night wasn't exactly wise. 

After sunrise, Lina and Gourry came down from the inn's second floor to find Zelgadis waiting for them, already halfway done with his breakfast.   
"Geez, Zel, you sure got up early...how long have you been up?", Lina said, as she came into the common room.   
"Since before sunrise." He glanced around the room, but saw that the innkeeper was well within earshot. "I couldn't sleep, and decided to take a walk." It was reasonably close to the truth.   
Amelia bounced down the stairs with a cheerful "Good morning, everybody!" She whisked past the long table and fetched a small plate of food, then joined Lina and the others.   
"You were out pretty late, Mr. Zelgadis."   
"Well, yes..." He fidgeted; if Amelia had seen anything last night, she could give away that he overheard the innkeeper's conversation.   
"Did anything happen? I thought I saw someone else out there from my window."   
"No, nobody." As he said this, he held a finger up for silence and nodded quietly towards the innkeeper. Amelia looked confused and nervous; Zel knew she didn't like any kind of deception, but she nodded and didn't say anything else. Lina just nodded; she understood. Gourry gave the group a blank look. "Did I miss something?"   
"No, Gourry, you didn't miss a thing. Your brain must still be asleep, and you dreamed it.", she replied, caustically.   
"Oh. OK." Gourry shrugged, and happily accepted her explanation.   
They ate breakfast quietly; every so often, the innkeeper would look their way, or watch them with a very odd look, like there was something he didn't quite understand. Zel and Lina managed to act completely natural; Gourry didn't need any deception, since he hadn't caught on in the first place; but Amelia was fidgeting and acting nervous. She had been raised to be very open, and sitting on important things bugged her. Zel and Lina weren't sure if the innkeeper noticed or not, but he certainly did seem to watch them more as time went on.   
As soon as they were finished, Lina slipped across the room and paid the innkeeper, then they left quietly. Amelia managed to wait until they were on the edge of town.   
"So, Mr. Zelgadis, what happened last night?"   
"I was out front of the inn, and I overheard the innkeeper talking to somebody by the back door. Whoever it was lived around here, and kept an inn room basically in secret; the innkeeper always told others it was 'reserved', and this-person-came and left when no one else was out. He asked the innkeeper if anything unusual had happened, and the innkeeper mentioned us. Whoever it was seemed very interested in Lina, and I think even afraid of her. He said that she could be trouble. After that, he went off into the forest towards the mountains; I tried to follow him, but I lost him at the edge of the woods."   
"So somebody's waiting for us out there, eh? Did you get a look at this guy?", Lina said, jumping into the conversation.   
"Not really. He was very thin, slightly taller than I am; I think he was in his late teens, early twenties. He wore a blue cloak and hood, so I couldn't tell anything beyond that."   
"Hmm...I wonder...did he sound like he recognized me?"   
"Yes, somewhat. Do you know him?"   
"Maybe." It wouldn't have surprised her if that little weasel, Feris, had managed to survive whatever destroyed Hickory. She didn't think he'd be the type to attack them or anything, but you could never be too sure. "Alright, if it is who I think it is, he probably won't do much, but you never know. Keep an eye out for traps or ambushes or anything like that."   
It was almost frightening how quickly they lost sight of the town in the thick forest. The trees grew over the path; the sun shining through the canopy painted the entire road with an emerald light. The path twisted and turned through the woods. Tree roots and fallen leaves covered most of the path.   
"Lina, are you sure this is the right road? It sure is winding." Gourry was trying to keep track of the path, but every time they turned a corner, his sense of direction scrambled.   
"Yeah, I recognize it. Same old 'shortcut', just a bit overgrown. Makes sense, since nobody's been out here for a couple years."   
"Shortcut?", Gourry asked, innocently.   
"It's a long story. Don't ask." She sounded like it was really a touchy subject.   
"OK." He had learned that when Lina said 'Don't Ask' in that tone, you didn't ask; doing otherwise could get painful.   
There was some light birdsong, but otherwise the forest was silent. Amelia began staring at the ground after a while, her mind wandering. Mostly, it wandered back home, to Seillune. Her family certainly seemed to have its share of problems; first, her mother getting murdered, and now just the week before, her own cousin recruiting Mazoku to help kill her father and take the throne! And then there was that whole mess, just before the Mazoku, with the Kingdom of Xoana kidnapping her; it wouldn't have been such a problem, if it hadn't been Mr. Zelgadis working for Martina and her father. At least things usually turned out okay in the end, except for poor Cousin Alfred just that last week. It was a pretty rough time. They were lucky Miss Lina had learned that new spell, and lucky that Mr. Xelloss had shown up when he did. Even with that, nobody had expected Cousin Alfred to be the one behind all of it, and it was even more of a surprise when the Mazoku turned on him in favor of going after Lina; one of them had killed Alfred when he tried to assert his authority over them after they quit following his plan.   
Amelia was so lost in thought that she didn't even notice that the path she was walking wound off away from the path the others were walking, deeper into the forest. She also didn't notice the way the bushes, tree roots, and branches moved back to cover up the temporary path behind her. When she finally looked up, she was in an entirely different part of the forest. There was a small, rocky clearing; a little hill of grey rock rose up sharply to her right. Straight ahead was a fast-flowing river. There was no path in sight anywhere around her.   
She turned around in circles, and walked around the clearing looking for the path. She didn't find it; she could've sworn there had been a path there a minute ago. There was no sign of Lina or the others.   
As soon as she realized she was separated, Amelia began yelling, "Miss Lina? Mr. Gourry? Mr. Zelgadis?" She paused; no answer. "Mr. Xelloss?" Still no answer. "Anybody?" There was a rustling sound in the bushes, back the way she had come. She turned around quickly, with the stone wall to her back so she'd be harder to ambush. 

At the same moment, Zelgadis was in basically the same predicament. He was trying to think of some way to diplomatically ask Lina who she thought the blue-cloaked figure was, and wasn't paying as much attention as he should have to where he was going. He didn't stay oblivious as long as Amelia had, though. Barely a few minutes after he left the path, he looked up and began, "Just out of curiousity, Lina-" Lina was nowhere to be seen; he was off in the trees. He could see the light coming through the canopy on the main trail maybe fifteen, twenty feet to his right.   
Zel started muttering under his breath; he really had to be more careful to watch where he was walking sometimes. He only took two steps before the forest loam and tree roots simply moved out from under him. The pit trap took him completely by surprise; he fell quite a ways before he realized just what was going on. Had he been human, the fall probably would've broken a bone; however, Zel wasn't human anymore, and the impact didn't do much more than knock the wind out of him.   
Almost the same second he hit the ground, three vines shot out and wrapped around him, almost immobilizing him. He tried to pull an arm free, to which the vines only tightened and started pulling towards the side of the shaft. His eyes adjusted to the dark, and he recognized his attacker.   
He had dealt with a mantrap once before, while he was still working for Rezo. He remembered that they sensed movement, and would attack anything that moved near them; also, that they were fairly voracious. In his position, he could only hope his chimerical body wouldn't be palatable to it. 

Amelia kept enough distance between herself and the rock that she could back up if ambushed. "Whoever you are, come out right now!" She tried to look threatening, and thought she did okay at it; unfortunately, she was one of those people who was basically incapable of scaring anything more ferocious than a rabbit or a deer.   
Something big and green was moving past the brush. It crept out into the clearing where she could see it clearly-a big thing, with eyes of green crystal, made of vines, plants, and dirt, with pieces of old log covering parts of it. Long, sharp thorns made claws on the four legs. Aside from the shuffling sound of its "feet" and the bushes it moved aside, it was totally silent.   
"Who-what-" The creature moved forward, faster than she had expected, and took a swing she barely dodged with its front claws.   
She now had her back up to the middle of the small cliff. Two more of the plant-things came out of the forest, making a half-circle and blocking off her escape paths. Amelia tried again to look impressive and threatening, and suceeded as much as an innocent-looking fourteen year old could. "It's not that easy to-agh!" She had to duck another swing. It looked like they weren't going to let her finish her usual pre-battle speech. "Alright, you asked for it..." She glanced around, quickly; she was boxed in and pushed up against the rock. Anything she did, had to be close-range, or she'd get hurt along with the creatures. "Visfarank!" Two spheres of light formed around her fists. She made a couple jabs at the closest monster; one fist hit the vines, damaging them, but they regenerated almost immediately. The other fist shattered the left crystal eye. The creature reared back, putting its right front "paw" over the remaining crystal; its left side was disintigrating rapidly. Amelia grinned; she had found a weakness she could use to get past them! One of them tried to attack her from behind; she wheeled around and punched out, crushing both crystals. It fell apart into a mass of vines, branches, thorns, and old wood. Another came from the forest to take its place.   
Amelia took down several of them; unfortunately, each one she defeated was quickly replaced, and each swing diminished the power of her spell; soon she wasn't doing enough damage to hurt the creatures. Worse, outnumbered like she was, she had to keep moving quickly or get hit. She was getting tired, and it was getting hard to keep track of all the monsters at once. Finally, she reacted just a bit too slowly, and didn't dodge quite fast enough; one of the creatures thwacked her across the shoulder, sending her sprawling on an overhanging piece of riverbank. They quickly closed the circle around her.   
She pulled herself back up to her feet, and looked for an escape route. They had closed off the path to the forest, and even if she got past the four blocking her in, there were probably more out in the trees. The river flowed fast past her, heading straight for Mount Cocytus; it looked like it hit rapids some distance ahead. However, she didn't have much choice.   
"You may have won this time, with your dirty tricks, but Justice will prevail in the end!" The old routine sounded hollow to her this time, like a squirrel chattering at a pack of wolves. Before one of the monsters could take another swipe at her, she jumped backward, into the river. 

"You're being awful quiet, Amel-huh?" Lina had turned back to glance at the young Princess, only to find that Amelia was missing-and so was Zel. The only people around were her and Gourry.   
"Hey, Gourry, did you see where Amelia and Zel went to?"   
"I didn't even notice they were gone."   
"Aw, great, now what..." She yelled, "Amelia! Zel! You out there?" There was no answer. 

Zel heard Lina calling, barely, but couldn't exactly respond; anything he did would only ensure that the mantrap attacked him. Right now, it seemed confused; Zel was two-thirds inedible to it. He held his breath and sat as still as he could. He noticed a few more details of his surroundings while waiting for the plant to loosen its grip; he was in a tunnel. The shaft he had fallen down was already halfway grown over by tree roots; he could see them moving across the shaft, blocking it off. The tunnel went off both ways, although he had fallen on one side of the plant; if he could get loose, he could get away down the tunnel. If his sense of direction held true, the tunnel ran basically parallel to the road, and the open stretch headed the same way they had been travelling; if he could get loose, he could find a way back to the surface further down the tunnel.   
He lost track of time, but the plant finally did relinquish its hold on him. When the last of the vines was off of him, he crept slowly back away from it, until he was a good twelve feet from it. As soon as he was sure he could move without getting snatched again, he called up a Lighting spell to get rid of the darkness, and walked away down the tunnel. 

Lina waited for an answer, probably longer than she should have. Questions started coming up:Zel was more than capable of taking care of himself, and even Amelia was a fairly experienced adventurer, occasional naivete aside. Whatever happened, happened without Lina and Gourry knowing, and somehow happened without Zel or Amelia getting the chance to warn Lina and Gourry.   
"Something's wrong here..." Lina and Gourry moved closer, back to back so nothing could surprise them. Lina kept ready to throw a spell at any ambushers, and Gourry was keeping one hand on his sword.   
The road fell quiet again, until a confused cry shattered the silence.   
Gourry and Lina both turned to face it, and found Xelloss, tangled in vines and tree branches, dangling like a madman's marrionette from a tree, with a look of utter shock on his face.   
"Xelloss? What are you doing here?" Lina figured he'd show up, but he'd never shown up quite like that.   
"Ah, well, I was resting in this tree, and I seem to have gotten myself into a bit of a predicament...ah...could you help me out?"   
Lina shrugged. "Sure. Fine. Fireball!" The vines crisped and blackened away, the branches scorched and snapped, and Xelloss fell, singed, on the ground below the tree. His staff clattered to the ground a few feet away, slighlty blackened but unharmed.   
"Um..thanks." He stood up and brushed off the ash and dust, then picked up his staff. Within seconds, he was back to his usual, cheerful, blase self. Lina noted that he had managed to go through the whole embarassing ordeal without opening his eyes once. Sometimes, that odd habit of his worried her. "What brings you all the way out here, Lina?"   
"We were just going to investigate Mount Cocytus. What are you doing out here?"   
"I was passing through, and heard that there were some odd things happening around here, and thought I would investigate." Lina had believed those stories, for a while, but now she was skeptical; there had been a few too many coincidental "Oh, I'm doing the same thing you are!" meetings for her to accept as coincidences.   
"Have you seen Zel and Amelia?"   
"No, I haven't...I only saw you walking by. I thought you had split up with them somewhere further up the trail."   
"We didn't split up-they vanished. And we have no clue what happened to them."   
"That is curious..." For once, Xelloss looked like he truly didn't have a clue what was going on. The moment was broken when the ground moved right out from under Gourry, the roots contorting to uncover a shaft going straight down. Gourry yelled and grabbed the closest support-Lina's arm. He still fell down the shaft, and Lina definitely wasn't capable of hanging on to him, especially that unexpectedly; so he pulled Lina down, and she fell like a crossbeam over the top of the shaft, grabbing hold of the roots with her free hand and hooking her feet under the roots on the other side.   
"Li-ina! Pull us up!" Gourry was hanging on to her arm with both hands. The shaft went down pretty far. "I would, but you're too heavy! Rrrr....Xelloss, would you help us out here?" Xelloss had been watching quietly; it was quite the pretty little mess. He wasn't sure if he should help them or not; the pit didn't look particularly life-threatening. "XELLOSS, GIVE ME A HAND!" Lina's tone was getting more urgent; she'd be ticked when she finally did get out of that mess. He debated flipping a coin, but decided that would only offend Lina further. "XELL-OSS!!" It was the tone of voice Lina usually used right before throwing a spell at someone. Xelloss decided that it couldn't hurt to give her a hand out of there, and leisurely walked over, putting a hand down to catch her free hand.   
Just as she grabbed for his arm, the pit suddenly widened, as the tree roots pulled the walls of the shaft away; Lina only succeeded at catching his ankle. Xelloss was now standing on nothing, and it was too abrupt for him to levitate without falling some distance, so he grabbed a tree branch with his free hand. The branch hung out over the pit, so the whole trio was dangling over the shaft in a string.   
"Now this is a pretty mess.", Xelloss said cheerfully, understating the situation entirely.   
"Pretty? PRETTY? What's pretty about it?! We're dangling over a pit by a tree branch, this gorilla is about to tear my arm out of its socket, and all you can say is 'this is a pretty mess'?! Does nothing upset you?"   
"Now that you mention it...not really."   
Lina growled. "Well, now what? What the heck happened back there?"   
"I dunno-the roots just moved out from under me."   
"Geez, Gourry, you fall into a pit trap and that's all you can...wait...you were standing there for a while, so it wasn't a normal pit trap, or it would've triggered the second you stepped on it...but if the roots really did move out from under you..." Lina could only think of a few things that could do that, and one them had lived right around here. "Oh no, not him again...What else can go wrong?"   
Xelloss offered, "Well, if our luck holds out, the branch I'm holding onto will snap." From his tone of voice, he may as well have been safely on solid ground, in no danger whatsoever.   
"Oh, no, the friggin' twerp wouldn't hurt his precious plants..." Lina was postively fuming.   
"So you know who's responsible for this?" Xelloss's tone brightened at the prospect of new information. Before Lina could gripe more, a four-inch long thorn suddenly sprouted out of the branch right through Xelloss's hand. He yelped and let go of the branch, and the whole trio fell. They hit the bottom of the shaft before Lina could gather her wits for a Levitation spell; as soon as she scrambled to her feet, the roots had grown over the tunnel, leaving them in the dark. 

Amelia swam with the current; she probably couldn't have fought it, anyway. She was just looking for a safe place to come ashore when she came up for air and saw the river ahead. A rocky overhang covered it entirely, with only a few inches between it and the surface of the water; she could barely see where the river dropped off into a tunnel underneath the overhang. It was a tunnel entrance. She turned as quickly as she could and struggled against the current, but only succeeded at slowing her movement downstream a little. She took one last deep breath before the current swept her under the rock. She fought the current still, and was almost holding her own, when she saw a suspicious, amorphous shape twisting in the current; it looked like a collection of vines and debris, with two glowing green points in the center...she turned back and started swimming with the current, trying to put distance between herself and the creature. The river fell down a short way into an underground tunnel, with plenty of space between the water and the cave roof. Skimming the bottom of the riverbed was a mixture of trout and small, eyeless white fish. The vine creature wasn't moving that quickly, and as long as Amelia kept up with the current, she could keep a decent distance betwen herself and it.   
The tunnel roof dropped, and Amelia found herself stuck underwater again. She didn't get very far out of the tunnel when something hooked through her clothing; after a short period of moving normally, there was a jerk, and she was held in place in the current. The creature was gaining on her fast. She struggled around, and found a fishhook jammed through her cloak and shirt. It was attached to a line, so someone had to be there. She pulled up above the surface and yelled for help, then a mass of vines attached to her leg and pulled her back under. She had seen someone holding the pole on the underground riverbank, but hadn't gotten a clear look at the person. At least they looked human. There was a sort of tug-of-war going on between the fisherman and the creature; but the fisherman was standing on solid ground, which the creature wasn't, and Amelia was slowly pulled back up to the bank. She fought to keep the thing from catching any more of her in its vines as she was finally drug out of the water.   
Her rescuer was a big, rough-looking man. His clothes were old and worn, and looked scavenged, as did the single armor shoulder plate he wore. A sword with a chewed-up hilt and scabbard hung at his belt. A torch guttered in the background, lighting the cavern dimly. Amelia was still struggling with the plant monster, which was coiling out of the water and reforming into its quadrupedal form.   
"AAAH! One of THOSE things!" The big guy panicked, snatched up his torch in one hand and drew his sword with the other. He did a hasty lion-tamer act with the plant thing, alternately driving it back with the torch and hacking at it with his sword. Once there was a little space, Amelia stepped back. "Bram Blazer!" A white shockwave went forward, missing her rescuer but blasting the plant-thing's head, cracking the crystals to pieces. The fisherman still hacked at it for a minute before he realized it was dead.   
"Geez, that was close! How'd you get that thing after you?"   
"I don't know. I was walking with Miss Lina and the others, I wasn't paying attention to where I was walking, and when I looked up, I was alone and a bunch of those things attacked me! Thank you for saving me."   
"Miss...Lina?" He looked almost afraid at the name. Amelia studied him suspiciously.   
"Are you a bandit?"   
"Bandit?! Me? No! I'm no bandit!"   
"Are you sure?" Amelia glared at him sternly and pulled up as tall as she could.   
"Of course..not...alright, alright, so I used to be a bandit, before that nutso mage wiped everybody else out two years ago...since then, I've been hiding out down here, trying hard not to get killed, living off of cave fish and mushrooms. Happy?"   
"Hmm...well, since you haven't been a bandit for that long, sure." She was back to being cheerful and almost completely friendly.   
"Great. Uh, which 'Miss Lina' might your companion happen to be?"   
"She's a sorceress, and she's been travelling for a while; lately, though, there's been a Dark Lord after her, so we've had a lot of trouble with Mazoku."   
"It wouldn't happen to be...Lina Inverse?" He sounded afraid again.   
"Yep, that's her!"   
"Figures..."   
"Was Lina the one that attacked the other bandits two years ago?"   
"No. She came out to do that, but somebody else got there first. Wierd kid, could control plants; turned the forest itself against us. That was one of his golems after you. Us and Lina, we wiped out a colony of man eating plants he was working with, so he's probably still ticked at her. 'Course, it's not like he's been doing nothing all this time, taking over that colony himself...basically, because of him, the forest spread out and took over the area."   
"Is that what happened to the town that used to be here?"   
"Hickory? Yep. A couple of the mantraps attacked some of the townsfolk, so they rallied to kill the plants, not realizing there was that mage protecting them. Did the same thing to Hickory he did to us; the forest itself wiped them out."   
"We've got to stop him!"   
"Whoah, there, kid-what's with the 'we' stuff? I've gone up against this psycho once, and I'm not going after him again-especially not if Lina Inverse is involved!"   
"What's wrong with Miss Lina?"   
"When we went after that colony of mantraps...every time she 'helped' me, I think I got hurt more than if she had just stayed away. Besides, she made it pretty clear that she doesn't...uh..well, she didn't like me." The way the kid had reacted to him being a former bandit, he definitely didn't want to mention the rest of the story - that Lina didn't like werewolves.   
"It's not just Miss Lina, we've also got Mr. Gourry and Mr. Zelgadis, and with all of us working together, I'm sure we can win this!"   
"I don't know any of those people...uh...does Lina still have that crazy lady with that hideous laugh with her-the one who always screws up spells?"   
"Who?"   
"Nevermind. Nobody." He shuddered at the memory of the sound. "Anyway, you're obviously not going back out the way you came, and since I know these tunnels pretty well, I may as well try and get you out here." He added, muttering, "After all, if Lina finds you safe, I won't have to deal with her..."   
"What?"   
"Err-nothing!"   
"Well...thank you! I really don't know this area, I was just following Miss Lina. I'm Amelia!"   
"Huh? Oh, right...name's Gareth."   
"Well, then, Mr. Gareth, we should get going, right?" Gareth gave her a strange look, muttered, "Mr. Gareth? It's gonna be a long day...", then said, "Right. Sooner you're back safe with Lina, the better." 


	3. Lost - The Tunnels Beneath Cocytus

Forest King, Chapter 2   
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I hope Xelloss's little internal dialogue at the end of the chapter makes sense...oh well. Yeah, one note, Xelloss shows a little bit of his true nature (aka his evil side) in this fic, although not much (he's still assigned to be helping Lina and the others, after all.)   
******************   
Zelgadis kept walking; the tunnel twisted and turned, headed up and down, until he had lost all sense of where he was going. Fortunately, there weren't any side tunnels, so he couldn't get too lost. The only thing he found was some spots in the cieling covered over by roots and not much else-apparently shafts like the one he had fallen down.   
He was surprised when he heard Lina complaining loudly behind him; he could barely make out the words..."...dangling...pit......gorilla tearing my arm out....all you can say is 'this is a pretty mess?! Does nothing upset you?!" Xelloss must've caught up with them. Zelgadis turned and hurried back towards the sound. Soon after he turned, though, he heard Xelloss yelp, and then a group "AAAAAAHHH!!!!" as they fell down the pit. Strangely, he didn't think he heard Amelia with them. At least he could get back with them fairly easily, since they were now in the tunnel as well. He was just about to call out to them, when someone caught his shoulder from behind.   
"I would leave now, if I were you-this isn't going to be pleasant." It was the mysterious figure from the inn.   
Zel turned, angry. "Who are you and what's going on here?!"   
"I live around here, you could say; I've lived here all my life. I used to live in Hickory, until it got destroyed. I can't tell you what's going on here, except that Lina is the target, and if you just get out of the way, you might be able to get out here alive."   
"Sorry-I don't believe in abandoning my friends to save my own skin."   
"You don't know what you're dealing with; you're actually lucky to be underground, he can't do as much to you down here. If you were on the surface, you wouldn't stand a chance-the forest itself is the enemy around here."   
"Thanks for the warning, but I'm not leaving without the others."   
"Your hide..." the figure stepped back into the darkness and vanished.   
There was a bit more of Lina griping, although this time he couldn't make it out. He debated between going back with the others and going after the man who had warned him. Lina, Gourry, and Xelloss would probably be safe; Zelgadis didn't doubt that they could deal with anything that was thrown at them. However, finding out just what was going on would certainly help him, and the rest of the group if he could get back with the information. Zel turned after the figure and picked up the pace.

"Oh, this is great. That little maniac is still alive, and he's got us stuck in a cave. Lighting!" A ball of light appeared near Lina's head, glowing about as brightly as a torch. "This time, when I see that sneaky, no-good murderous creep, I'm making sure he's dead!"   
Xelloss had stepped aside to inspect his hand, keeping his back to the rest of the group. There was a nice, neat hole right through his right hand. Anybody seeing the wound would've known he wasn't human. The torn edges of his glove were the only solid part of the wound; past the edges, his hand was just a black void around the hole, with the occasional streak of white energy crossing the edges. He could see the ground through the wound. This wouldn't do at all; they weren't supposed to know much of anything about him yet, and if Lina saw that, she'd immediately know what he was.   
"Plus, there's Zel and Amelia to-Are you listening to me, Gourry?" Xelloss glanced back. The swordsman was staring at him with an intent, slightly suspicious look that would've fooled anyone who wasn't used to his normal oblivious stupidity into thinking he was actually smart. Xelloss realized he'd been muttering to himself, thinking out loud again; Gourry must've heard part of it-although how he could do that over Lina's ranting was a mystery to Xelloss. Gourry may be dumb as rocks normally, but he had his moments, and if he was having one of those moments now, Xelloss's entire cover could be blown.   
Xelloss pulled his cheerful facade back together and stepped off into the shadows.   
"Oh, and by the way, Xelloss, how's that hand? Need any help?" Lina was sincere there; she did know healing spells, and wasn't sure if Xelloss did. He said he was a Priest, which usually meant someone who studied White Magic-especially healing-but with Xelloss, she was never sure. If he couldn't heal it himself, she would be completely willing to help; if they needed to rely on him anytime soon, he wouldn't be much help with that injury.   
Xelloss nearly jumped out of his skin, surprised, but recovered fairly quickly. "Ah, no, I can take care of it myself." As he turned to face her, he carefully held the injured hand under his cloak, where it couldn't be seen. "In fact, I was just going to go handle that-I'll be right back." He stepped out of the area lit by Lina's spell, into the darker parts of the tunnel. He could see fine, even with his eyes closed and even if the spell were extinguished and they were left in total darkness, so it wouldn't be a problem.   
Once he was safely away from the others, he rummaged through his pouch for the stuff he had saved for just such an emergency-a small roll of bandages and a crystal vial of fake blood. It took a minute to shuffle aside the jackdaw's nest of trinkets and stuff to find them, probably longer than it took him to wrap the bandage and prepare the ruse. She'd probably still pester him to let her cast a healing spell, but wouldn't keep it up if he stood his ground; now if Amelia were there, he might have had a problem. When the bandage was ready, he returned to the group, where Lina and Gourry were waiting for him, ready to go off down the tunnel.   
"You sure you don't want a healing spell? That thorn must've hurt, and it'd be a lot easier than walking around with that bandage."   
"No, thank you, I'll be fine. Besides, I heal fast." It was the truth; within the hour, the wound would be healed clean, with no sign he had ever been hurt.   
"Suit yourself.." Lina shrugged and gave him a strange look. Sometimes, Xelloss seemed masochistic about getting hurt, and Lina often thought he was probably the strangest member of their group; Amelia was just naive and occasionally misguided, and Zel only looked strange on the outside, but Xelloss was wierd through and through. "Anyway, I'd be willing to bet Zel and Amelia fell into those sinkholes too. The tunnels are probably linked,", she looked around at the tunnel, "or maybe even the same tunnel, so if we look around down here, we should find them. You two ready?"   
"Right!" Gourry hopped up off the rock he had been sitting on.   
"Whenever you're ready." Xelloss waved Lina on in the direction they had been heading. "They're probably looking for you two, so they may have continued on in the direction of the path aboveground, hoping to meet you at the destination."   
"Good thinking. Let's go." Lina led the trio, the Lighting spell bobbing in the air just behind her. Xelloss brought up the rear, hoping Gourry would forget whatever he overheard; Gourry had a rotten memory anyway, so he was probably safe.

Zel was making fairly good time; unfortunately, the mystery man had left no trace, just like last time, so all Zel had to go on was that the tunnel continued ahead, with no branches. He didn't think the odd character could leave through one of the root-covered shafts, but then again, someone who had lived here all his life just might now a secret passage of some kind, so Zel wasn't even sure he was still in the tunnel.   
Things got even worse when his Lighting spell disappeared suddenly. It hadn't been on that long, so the spell couldn't have run out of power; someone had to dispel it for it to vanish like that. Zelgadis paused; sure enough, he heard the scrape of a foot on stone behind him. He turned swiftly, sword out.   
"Astral Vine!" The blade flared up with a red glow; it wasn't even as bright as a candle, but Zel didn't need that much light to see. At the edge of what he could see, there was someone about his height. All Zel could make out in the dim light was a tattered, ragged cloak and hood. To either side of the figure, and back away from the light, were pairs of glowing green points-probably eyes.   
"Are you the one responsible for all this?" It was basically a rhetorical question.   
"I'm the one in control of this forest, if that's what you're asking." He didn't sound like he talked very often; he was very quiet, and very soft-spoken...and sounded very cold.   
"So you're the one that destroyed the town that used to be here?"   
The figure took a while to respond; when he did, he sounded angry. "They attacked us. We fought back."   
"We? Who are you working with?" Zel was actually thinking of the other odd character, who he had seen in town; he was completely surprised when a mantrap burrowed out of the ground right in front of him. The two plant beasts moved out to where Zel could see them.   
Zel swung his sword at the mantrap, hoping to cut through the stalk; but the plant dodged out of the way. It sensed movement, especially fast movement, making it hard to hit reliably. As he swung, one of the plant beasts moved towards him; they were faster than they looked. It reared up on two legs to claw at him. He cut upward, neatly taking off the head.   
The creature toppled over, but not for long; within moments, the vines of the head had pulled back towards the vines and branches making up the neck, and the creature was back on its feet. Zelgadis backed up, putting some space between him and its claws; it almost certainly couldn't cut him, but it didn't hurt to be safe. "Elmekia Lance!" The spear of light impacted on the creature in a bright flash, but didn't really affect it; it had no spirit for the spell to attack-a construct of some kind. He needed to destroy it some other way. Luckily, there wasn't enough space in the tunnel for both of them to attack him at once, but if he kept backing up, the tunnel widened not much further.   
"Bram Blazer!" A shockwave of light tore through the construct, shredding the vines and leaving it in a tattered heap, dropping the head down almost bodiless. Many of the vines, wood, and growths that made up the original golem were destroyed. However, roots from the nearby ground detached and slithered into it, and it reformed-albeit from different materials-far too quickly.   
Zel heard his opponent's incantation, and ducked barely in time; the Freeze Lance swept right over his head and hit the wall further down, where the tunnel turned, covering it in ice. The golem lunged, slashing at him; it only succeeded in cutting through clothing, just as Zel expected. There were some benefits to his chimera curse, and being nearly invulnerable to edged weapons was one of them.   
The mantrap burrowed down into the ground, coming up behind him. Any one of the threats, Zelgadis could've dealt with, but all three at once was too much; as soon as he turned his attention to one attacker, another one tried to catch him off guard. He turned and darted past the mantrap, running down the tunnel.

Many of the paths Gareth led Amelia through cut past or near lava flows. "Mr. Gareth-where are we?"   
"Right under the roots of Cocytus. That's why I live down here; the plants won't cross the lava, so it's safe."   
"So you've been hiding here for two years?"   
"Yep. Not much choice. Every once in a while, I do try and duck out and leave-hit the road, go somewhere else!-but every time, that mage kid notices me and goes all out to kill me, and I wind up running back here with my tail between my legs." Amelia didn't realize he meant that last cliche literally. Not that she was worried about anything like that; this plant mage had done a lot of damage, and somebody had to stop him! Even if she didn't find Lina and the others, she couldn't stand by and let him get away with his crimes. If he wouldn't surrender peacefully-which she didn't think he would-then she'd have to start a fight.   
"Do you know his name?"   
"Dunno...I think Lina heard it once...Damien, Darius, something like that. Oh, there's a tunnel to the surface just a little up the road here; once we're out, we can sneak out to the road and see where Lina is."   
Gareth led her over a short patch of lava with rocks sticking out of it; getting across required a very dangerous, but short, game of hopskotch. It was only maybe three feet across. After that was a corner. Amelia caught a short flash of blue cloth rounding another corner ahead; Gareth actually growled and chased after the phantom, Amelia running close behind. When she caught up to him, he had tackled the blue-cloaked man who Zelgadis had tailed back in the town.   
"You! What're you doing back here? Well, you little weasel?" Gareth was definitely upset. Amelia didn't think the young man looked that dangerous; Miss Lina was usually more threatening, and she was a bit smaller than this man was.   
"I live around here, as best as I can! What are you still doing here?"   
"Trying to stay alive! How'd you survive Hickory getting destroyed?"   
"I don't have to tell you that-let me go!" The young man was struggling to get loose, but wasn't strong enough to shake Gareth off.   
"Why were you asking about us in town?" Amelia had joined the interrogation.   
"I keep track of all the travellers heading into that forest-usually try and warn them, do some charity!"   
"How did you know Miss Lina?" Gareth may have had the boy pinned, but Amelia had taken over asking the questions.   
"I worked with her for a while, a few years ago. We were chasing down some bandits that used to live here."   
"Worked with her? You ran away the first time a fight started, then you double-crossed her and got her kicked out of town! I helped more than you did, and I spent half my time trying to sneak away into the woods!"   
"QUIET!", Amelia yelled. "Alright, both of you, sit down and tell me exactly what happened two years ago-and don't try and lie, or change anything-and then we can sort this out!" Gareth let Feris up; they sat down against the rock wall of the tunnel. Gareth's torch was sputtering in the middle of the floor; it went out for a few seconds, but before Feris could slip off, Amelia had a Lighting spell illuminating the tunnel. "And don't try to sneak away, or I'll just have to track you down and drag you back here!" Gareth was actually cringing, and Feris stared at her as if he had never seen her before, and was trying to figure out who and what the heck she was. "Alright, you-tell me your name, and start from the beginning, and don't leave anything out!"   
"Ahhh...I'm Feris. I lived on the edge of Hickory, and spent most of my time out in the woods. I was a hunter. There was an old woodsman and his family living on the edge of town. About ten years ago, a group of bandits-including this werewolf-" Gareth winced, and Amelia stared at him in surprise at the word 'werewolf'; "-moved in, killed the old woodsman and his family, and turned their old home into a fortress. They started attacking Hickory. Two years ago, Lina and her partner came into town lost; the mayor hired them to do something about the bandits, and asked me to guide them through the forest and help them. When we got there, the fortress was already destroyed, and all the bandits but this one were dead. He gave us some story about the forest attacking them. That evening, we were ambushed by a group of monsters; I went back to Hickory to get reinforcements. When we got there, the place was trashed, and there was no sign of Lina, her partner, or this wolf. We waited for a while, then headed back for Hickory, and at sunrise the next day, the three of them came out of the forest, thick as thieves. We figured that, from the way Lina and her partner were palling around with 'Wolf Boy' here, they had to be working with the bandits, and chased them off."   
Amelia tried to be objective here; Feris had only seen half of the story, after all, and it was a valid misunderstanding. Miss Lina would never work with bandits without a good reason, though, and even if he was a werewolf, Mr. Gareth didn't seem that bad. "Alright, then, Mr. Gareth?"   
"I wasn't there when the group first moved in; I joined later, maybe eight years ago. There was already a lot of strange stuff going on, some of our people vanishing in the forest, and a lot of stories. Seems the old woodsman's son was a real creepy kid, and most of the other bandits figured he was haunting the place. Well, we found out what was attacking us in the woods-a whole colony of mantrap plants, spread out all over the place. The things were attacking anybody that went out there, and we stopped normal bandit stuff to do something about them. We did okay, for a while, then the wierd stuff really started-the forest itself started attacking us. We didn't know what was going on, and pretty soon, we were holed up in our fort, sieged by the forest itself! Things got real quiet, then two years ago, the day before Lina arrived, the forest attacked out of nowhere. The main part of the attack was led by those plant-things, like the one that was chasing you! I hid in the tower while the fort was demolished, and stayed there until Lina found me the next evening. They went over the place and said there had been a mage there. Well, we got settled in to camp so we could figure what happened in the morning, in daylight, but around midnight, the plant-things ambushed us. Feris was there, for a while, but the mage put out our campfire and a mantrap came up in the middle of our camp, and he ran just as the mantrap and the golems really ambushed us. Lina burned the plants up with a big spell-Dragon something-an' then Lina and I got hit from nowhere with this ice spell, encased us completely. Well, her partner nailed the mage that cast it with some screwy spell, long story; they interrogated me again, and figured out that the old woodsman's son wasn't dead, that he was the mage that had attacked us. Well, they said that mantraps didn't usually come close to town, so they drug me deeper into the woods to find the main colony and destroy it. We found it, Lina blew it up, and they drug me back. We had to sneak past mantraps and all sorts of nastiness, and when they got back to town, they were talking about turning me in and getting a real meal and a good night's sleep. The only reason I didn't run away is that Lina would toss a fireball at me every time I tried. Then we see Feris, the mayor, and a bunch of archers up on the town wall; they start shooting at us, and the mayor tells Lina to get lost and never come back. That's about where I ran into the woods, and found out the mage kid had survived Lina's partner's spell; the forest started going after me, and those golem-things of his were trying to ambush me. I got to the volcano, found out they didn't like the lava, and I've been here ever since."   
"Alright, both of you told everything you knew, right?" They nodded. "Okay...Mr. Feris, you shouldn't have assumed right away that Miss Lina was working with the bandits just because they had Mr. Gareth with them. You should've done a real investigation and found out what was happening before you started attacking them, especially since you knew there were monsters out there. Mr. Gareth...uhh..well, at least you're not a bandit anymore, so that's good, and you did help try to stop the mantraps from attacking the town. Mr. Feris, are you sure you didn't know there was a sorceror living out here who could control plants?"   
"Of course not! I'm a hunter, not a sorceror; I'm a good tracker, but anybody who can control plants could sure as Hell hide from me, easy!"   
"Hmph-Lina and her partner said you told them you knew the kid before we moved in, and that you were probably still working with him!"   
"Darius was no mage, and he certainly didn't have any power over plants." That was a total lie if ever there was one, but at least the crazy girl didn't know that.   
"You just don't want anybody to know what's going on, am I right? Just like two years ago-once a liar, always a liar."   
"I have nothing to hide, wolf!"   
"ALRIGHT! Listen, we obviously can't work this out just with what you two know, so let's find Miss Lina and ask her what happened. Then maybe we can get a good idea of what really went on." They quieted down, glaring at one another in silence. "Well, you both know this area, right? So you can find Miss Lina out on the trail, and we can clear this up if we get going." They grumbled and stood up, still glaring at each other. Gareth picked up his dead torch, and they head for the tunnel that opened into the forest.   
When they arrived, the tunnel was completely grown over with vines. Gareth hacked at them with his sword, but they actually turned on him, and he had to struggle to pull his sword loose. Amelia tried to burn through them with a Flare Arrow, but they regrew immediately. While they were fighting to get past the plants, Feris slipped off quietly; the last thing he wanted was a confrontation with Lina.

Lina stopped; they had come to a split in the tunnel, one path leading off right, the other off left.   
"Oh, this is great. Listen, if what I think's going on is happening here, then we had better find them fast-so we've got to pick carefully."   
"Or, we could split up.", Xelloss offered. Lina gave him a suspicious stare; he could be helpful, but he usually had his own agenda, and had often gotten them in trouble when their plans conflicted with his in the slightest way. With three of them, two would have to take one path. Sending Gourry out to look for them by himself was a lost cause, and besides, if Darius did show up, she wasn't sure Gourry would figure out how to kill Darius's golems on his own. She didn't trust Xelloss to go off on his own, simply because he had been so duplicitous in the past. An idea came up.   
"Alright, Gourry, Xelloss, you take that path-" she pointed left "-and I'll take this one."   
"That might not be a good idea..." Lina had expected Xelloss to object.   
"There could be some nasty things down there, and Gourry's gonna need some help figuring out how to take them down; you don't know anything about this place either, but you know enough magic that the two of you could search effectively without getting overwhelmed. I know this area, and I can move faster if I don't have somebody else to explain everything to."   
"That is a point...but I think I've seen enough to have an idea of what's going on here-someone is controlling the plants around here-and I can take care of myself; I usually travel alone, and I've dealt with far worse! You're used to working with Gourry, and you can explain what's going on to him better, since you know more about this area than I do-so it would be more effective if you two take that fork-" Xelloss gestured towards the right fork with his staff "-and I'll go this way."   
"No can do. I can move faster around this place alone, and you and Gourry can move just as fast if you cooperate." Lina wasn't going to let Xelloss manipulate her or talk her into letting him go alone.   
"Lina...I can see what both of you are saying, but I'm here to be your protector, and I think I'd rather go with you." Now that was something she should've expected; Lina mentally kicked herself for not thinking of Gourry's reaction sooner. "Besides, I think we can trust Xelloss on this; even though he is pretty sneaky, he's never put any of us in real danger, or left us there if he found us that way, so I think he'd help Zelgadis and Amelia if he found them." That, however, was completely unexpected. How could Gourry be so stupid sometimes, and be a mind-reader others? She was never sure if he was that straightforward intentionally, or if he just didn't know any better.   
"Alright, I give. Xelloss, you go that way, and see if you can find Zelgadis and Amelia that way; we'll go this way, and look for them down here. If you find them, come back this way and find us, so we're all in one group; but if for some reason you find them and we get really separated, then leave some kind of a marker we'll recognize and wait for us back in town. We'll do the same if we find them."   
"I'll do just that." He swept off down the tunnel, the jewel on his staff glowing softly; he was out of sight quickly.   
"Alright, Gourry, let's get going. I just hope you're right about Xelloss; if that plant guy really is behind all this, then we had better find Zelgadis and Amelia quickly, or this could get ugly, and we can't afford to have Xelloss going off and pulling one of his plans on us."   
"Right."

Back on the surface, in the forest, another traveller was blazing down the road towards the peak. She was madly following a trail of rumors and "He-went-thataway" directions. When she heard how dangerous the forest was, she had picked up the pace; true, Master Xelloss had rescued her from bandits, but this place had something unknown, and if Master Xelloss was in any danger, Martina would be right there to protect him. Besides, Lina had also gone into the forest, and if she found Lina first, she might finally be able to exact revenge on Lina for destroying her kingdom, Xoana, and leaving her penniless-without Master Xelloss asking her not to pester Lina. She hated Lina, but she couldn't turn down one of Xelloss's requests.   
"You might want to stop right there." Martina turned in surprise; she hadn't known anyone else was there. It was a young man in a blue cloak.   
"What was that?"   
"This forest is dangerous. There's things out here you don't understand, and you should turn back right now."   
"Has anyone else come into this forest?"   
"Plenty of people come into this forest. Everybody who doesn't turn back about here, doesn't leave alive." Shoot-that meant Martina probably wouldn't get a chance to get revenge on Lina, but she could live with just knowing that Lina had gotten what was coming to her. Master Xelloss, however...Martina didn't want to think about him getting killed out in this forest. From the sound of things, he was still following that accursed Lina Inverse.   
"Did a bad-tempered, flat-chested, short sorceress named Lina Inverse come this way?" It was obvious she hated Lina.   
Feris stared at her strangely. "Yes...and if you're looking for her, you definitely should turn back; whatever's out there is targetting her and anybody with her, over anyone else."   
"Did she have a wandering priest with her?" Now her tone had softened a great deal; Feris stepped back a little, confused at the complete one-eighty-degree change in attitude.   
"Yes, he caught up to them after two of her other companions vanished...why?" So Xelloss was out there...with Lina...with something targetting everybody with her-which meant it would go after Xelloss.   
"Where is he now?"   
"Last I saw, they had fallen into a pit trap, down into the caves; I'd bet they're not coming back." Now Martina was really worried.   
"Oooooh...Don't worry, Master Xelloss, I'm coming!", she yelled. She ran down the path as fast as she could, which wasn't that fast; she was a princess, after all, and wasn't used to this kind of rough conditions. She also knew Xelloss probably couldn't hear her right now, but at least it made her feel a little better to have said it. As uncomfortable as it was to run that far, she would find Xelloss and anything that attacked him could face the wrath of Zoamel Gustav!

"Oh, now what are we supposed to do? Where'd Mr. Feris go?"   
"That snake? Probably to 'find reinforcements' again. I wouldn't worry about it, we can still find Lina-we'll just have to find another way out of the tunnels. I think there was another exit, led to an old system of caves that cut straight under the forest; we can leave that way."   
"I guess..." Amelia realized she shouldn't be worried about Miss Lina and the others; they could take care of themselves, and besides, Miss Lina had fought the golems and other creatures before, and knew their weaknesses without learning them by trial and error the way Amelia had. Still, if they weren't expecting it, they could've gotten hurt, and Amelia wanted to catch up to them as quickly as possible. Besides, she wanted to know the whole truth of what had happened, and until she asked Miss Lina, she wouldn't be able to tie the two stories together.   
Amelia kept her Lighting spell going so Gareth didn't have to light the torch. They crossed several more stretches of lava; the lava stretches seemed to get more frequent and wider as they crossed the tunnel. The worst of it was another stretch of hopskotch-rocks, this one almost twenty feet across. Gareth hopped across as if it were nothing, but Amelia had to move a bit more carefully; every time she landed, she felt like she was going to lose her balance and fall into the lava. She was keeping a Levitation spell ready, just in case.

After the third time Darius and his plants ambushed Zelgadis, he had figured out the weak point of the golems; hitting the golem's eyes when you were being attacked from three directions was a problem, however, and he found himself being harried and chased through the tunnels. He had passed by several forks, and was completely lost. He'd have to worry about finding Lina and the others when he had some more breathing room. He wasn't that afraid of the golems, or the mantrap; they couldn't hurt him on their own. They could, however, distract him enough that the mage could hurt him, and that was the danger. It seemed to Zel that the mage had figured that out too, and now they had a cat-and-mouse game going under the stone, with Zelgadis the mouse. Zel moved fast enough that he could usually dodge out and run when things got too hairy without getting caught, but he wasn't sure how long he could keep it up. Sooner or later, he'd have to find somewhere that he could make a stand and fight them without getting outnumbered. He was hoping for a narrow tunnel, where only one of the golems would fit so he wouldn't have to deal with the mage, ideally with some kind of obstacle to his back so the mantrap couldn't attack him from behind.   
He was disappointed when the tunnel started to widen. The makeup of the tunnel changed, from hard-packed forest dirt and old rocks to porous, black volcanic stone; he was under the base of Cocytus. If the mantrap could burrow there at all, it would have to move slowly, so he at least had that out of the way.   
Zel came around a wide, gentle bend in the tunnel and skidded to a stop. In front of him was a ten foot wide stretch of solid lava; beyond it, the tunnel stayed about fifteen feet across, and made a sharp ninety-degree turn. This would be a decent place to make a stand; while there was more space than he would've liked, he could use the lava flow to his advantage, and he could easily jump the lava flow. He quietly returned to the bend in the tunnel; he could see the glowing green eyes of the golems some distance down, in the darkness.   
"Mr. Zelgadis!" Amelia startled him, and as he turned, he nearly tripped in surprise. She was at the ninety-degree bend, accompanied by a large, rough-looking fellow. "You're okay! Where's Miss Lina and Mr. Gourry?"   
"I haven't seen Lina or Gourry; I fell down a shaft into these tunnels quite a while ago. I thought you were with them."   
Zel glanced back down the other tunnel; they were moving quickly. On this side of the lava, he was outnumbered; on that side, he had Amelia and her new companion to help him fight them off. "Amelia-I'm coming over to that side of the lava." He backed all the way to the corner and made a running leap, barely clearing the lava; he rolled as he landed, coming up on his feet a few feet from Amelia.   
"You mean you thought I was with Miss Lina and Mr. Gourry? Then we must've gotten separated about the same time...do you think they're alright?"   
"Lina and Gourry can take care of themselves; they've managed quite a bit on their own before. I also think Xelloss caught up to them." He didn't sound too happy about that idea. "We, however, have a problem; there's a sorceror down here with a team of plant golems who doesn't like visitors."   
Did you actually see the twerp?" Gareth was a little surprised; the kid controlled the woods, but he usually didn't show himself.   
"Oh, sorry...Mr. Zelgadis, this is Mr. Gareth. He rescued me when I was ambushed by some of those plant golems; he's been living down here for a couple years. Mr. Gareth, Mr. Zelgadis-he's been travelling with us a while now, and he can help us get past anything that evil sorceror throws at us!" Gareth wondered a little about Zelgadis; he wasn't human himself, but he had never seen a creature quite like Zel. He apparently wasn't Mazoku, or Amelia never would be travelling with him, which didn't leave a whole lot-some other creature that wasn't known, or the victim of a mage's experiment. If the latter was true, then he looked pretty darned good for a chimera-most of them were mismatched quilts of the different component creatures, and would never be mistaken for something natural.   
"We don't have much time for introductions-they were right behind me, and should be catching up any minute now."

As soon as Xelloss had set foot under the mountain, he had noticed a simple fact:the mountain itself hated him. Sensitive as he was to emotions and that kind of energy, he couldn't help but know that the entire mountain despised him, and would gladly see him dead, if it could do anything. If he were human, it probably would scare him completely. However, Mazoku fed off negative energy and darker emotions, so if anything, he rather enjoyed the mountain's hatred. In fact, unlike many things that hated him, the mountain had no chance of hurting him, so he was quite at home in its tunnels.   
He, of all Mazoku, knew very well why the mountain hated him. He hadn't been directly involved in the siege of this peak, in the War of Monster's Resurrection a thousand years ago, but he had been some distance to the north, making sure the reinforcements never came for the dragons. He understood it was quite a battle, and the only reason the dragons had held out that long was the way they had cultivated and enchanted the mountain into a living fortress. Unfortunately, the mountain couldn't do much against the stronger Mazoku, and as powerful as the dragons of the peak were, the Mazoku had still outmaneuvered them and destroyed them. Xelloss was almost surprised that none of the higher-ranking Mazoku serving the Demon King of the North, the strongest Mazoku in the range and a fragment of Ruby Eye Shabranigdu, had moved into the mountain; to his way of thinking, it would be prime real estate to any Mazoku strong enough to ignore lava-i.e., most of the truly intelligent members of the race.   
The road Xelloss had taken went straight under the mountain, and the black earth gave way to volcanic rock almost as soon as he split off from Lina and Gourry. After the suspicious way Gourry had been watching him earlier, Xelloss had been worried about Gourry agreeing with Lina and going with him. In truth, Gourry was right about Xelloss helping them. Something rotten was afoot, as Kanzeil and Mazenda were proof-Demon Dragon King Gaav was up to something, and he hadn't told any of the other Dark Lords; Zelas Metallium and Hellmaster Phibrizio had noticed the Mazoku activity, but didn't even know who was behind it until Kanzeil let it slip back in Seillune. Phibrizio, the leader of the Dark Lords, had gone to Zelas Metallium, Xelloss's direct superior, to find out what was going on; he wasn't particularly happy with his underlings doing things without telling him. Xelloss understood that at first, the plan had been to just send Xelloss out to find out himself, but they were trying to avoid a civil war, and Xelloss was well known as Metallium's eyes and ears; if another Dark Lord was up to something-especially Deep Sea Dolphin, who didn't like Metallium, and who Xelloss had heard was one of the main suspects-the Dark Lord responsible for the sneaky doings wouldn't be too happy to see him. Xelloss hadn't actually been told that much, only that one of the Dark Lords was up to something, and they didn't want him working in the open; instead, he was supposed to seek out Lina Inverse, specifically, follow her, and try to make sure she and her companions stayed alive. There were a few other instructions about manipulating Lina that were irrelevant to the current, pressing problem with Gaav.   
At first, Xelloss had been doubtful about following Lina, but sure enough, she quickly became entangled in the plot, and led Xelloss to an answer quickly. It had been a surprise to learn that Gaav was behind things; everyone knew Gaav was discontent, being half-dead and trapped in a human body, but he was a berserker warrior, not much a thinker, and no one believed him capable of the cunning necessary for the quiet plans going on. While they were still reviewing suspects, that had left Deep Sea Dolphin and Dynast Gauscherra as equal prospects; Dolphin usually didn't involve herself with affairs above the water's surface, but she was also insane, and nobody knew why she did things. Dynast, on the other hand, while loyal to Shabranigdu, had a reputation for cunning and sneakiness that easily eclipsed Xelloss's, and was a prime suspect. Of course, those assumptions meant nothing now that the true culprit was known. Xelloss still didn't know exactly what Gaav was up to, but the way Lina was going, he'd find out soon enough by following her- and if Gaav needed to be put back in his place, she'd probably be more than happy to handle that too. Also, Lina seemed to be something of the key to the whole situation. Kanzeil and Mazenda had, indeed, been working to take over Seillune, but only as a side note of their true plan-killing Lina. Gaav wanted Lina dead, and that made it worth helping her to find out what he was up to.   
Hence, because of his orders, Gourry had Xelloss pegged. Although Xelloss was supposed to operate in secret and stay out of the spotlight, he was also supposed to make sure Lina and the others survived, so if he found Amelia and Zelgadis in trouble, he'd help them out of it. Quietly, and he didn't mind them getting hurt, but he'd do it. Besides, he didn't have that much else to investigate here, aside from a walk down memory lane. No matter how powerful the enchantments the dragons had left behind, a Mazoku could never use it, so Xelloss had no need to dig too deep here.   
He had been walking for a while; from the size and smooth, circular cut of the tunnel, Xelloss guessed that the branch had been one of the tunnels the Mazoku used to make the final assault on the peak. If that was true, he'd be coming up in the old dragon fortress soon. He had some mild curiousity about the place, but in the end, it was a battle that had already been won, and anything of use would've been found centuries ago.   
Sure enough, the tunnel soon came up in a huge chamber, big enough to hold a small mansion. It had been carved into an austere room, lit by lava flowing through veins of emerald in the cieling. There was a draconic bed on one wall, with the bones of a gold dragon stretched on it; from the look of it, it had either been a barracks room or a sick room.   
Xelloss walked out into the center of the room, and froze. There was a new sensation, not the cold, impotent hatred of the mountain-this was something individual, with a burning rage and anger, something with the desire and ability to kill...and it had focused on him the moment he entered. He turned his head slightly to glance behind him, and saw two blue points of light blazing in the dragon skull.


	4. Reunion - Gathering for the Final Stand

Forest King Chapter 4   
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Author's Notes: Ahm, Okay, my head's stuffed up. I think I should stop making notes, since my chapter 3 notes went on Chapter 4.   
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The plant-golems moved fast. Not long after Zelgadis's warning, the three could hear the golems's claws scratching on the stone. The Astral Vine on Zel's sword was fading, so he recast it, and Amelia moved closer, to be ready when they attacked. Gareth, however, was leaning against the wall nonchalantly, looking completely unconcerned.   
The golems slid around the corner and loped to the edge of the lava, where they stopped, looking almost dumbfounded.   
"Hah-knew it. They won't cross the lava. They can't jump far enough to cross it, even if they tried. We're safe here." When Darius finally caught up to the golems, accompanied by three more of the things, Gareth's confidence died quickly.   
"You seem sure of yourself over there." Darius was getting very irritated; the chimera had turned out to be much tougher prey than he had thought, and now it just got harder-not only had he caught up with Gareth and the girl, but they had also found a way to slow down the golems.   
"You've had us on the run for a while, but now we're ready for a fight, and Justice will prevail this time!" Amelia's routine finally carried weight again-in her eyes, at least.   
"Justice? There's a concept. The only law that has ever worked out here is survival of the fittest...isn't that right, wolf?" Gareth was seriously considering running; Darius was dangerous, and both of his new companions had admitted to being harried and hunted before. He edged back towards the bend in the tunnel, silently gauging how fast he could cross the stepping stones across that twenty-foot stretch of lava he had crossed to come here.   
"Hmph. Coward. Are you really that afraid of me that you're scared speechless, even when you're safe behind your lava? I'd say you act more like a were-dog than a were-wolf...but most dogs have more spine than you've shown."   
"It's not like he's had a chance, up until now-it's just been you and those plants out in the forest. You've had all of us on the run by ourselves; but now we're in one place, and we're ready for you. Come to think of it, you've never talked this much before..is it because we finally have a chance to defeat you, and you don't want to admit it?" As he spoke, Zel was measuring Darius up; he hadn't seen any really powerful spells from Darius, mostly just the plants attacking for him. A sorceror was dangerous at any distance, but Zel figured that he could take down Darius by himself if the golems could be kept away; in fact, Amelia could handle him, if she just remembered to be careful. With both of them there, and Darius's golems safely on the other side of the lava, he wouldn't be that hard to defeat.   
Gareth stopped retreating. How long had he been running from Darius? Zelgadis was correct, and he had been alone before. He didn't know if he would get another chance to have some help against Darius, and if he was going to make a stand, this would be the time, when he had help and a defensible position.   
Darius's response wasn't what Zelgadis had expected. "You who dwells between sky and earth..." A cold blast of air blew across the lava towards them. Zelgadis braced himself; dodging a Demona Crystal could be done, but it had to timed right. "Gently flowing water, gather in my hand and give me strength-Demona Crystal!" The cold air crystalized quickly. Zelgadis jumped aside, but was surprised to see that the spell hadn't even reached the ground four feet in front of where he had been. Instead, the ice had spread out in a layer three feet thick over the lava, a chance the golems took to cross the lava before it could break. Darius himself followed right behind them, at a much slower pace. As he stepped off of the ice bridge, it began to crack and collapse.   
While Darius was forming the ice bridge, Gareth was making a quick shapeshift into his beast form and drawing the worn, salvaged sword he kept with him. Amelia didn't carry any kind of a weapon. While that could make fighting in close quarters a hazard, it left her free to use spells without worrying about a close melee; besides, the main reason was that she didn't like weapons that much, especially swords. A golem moved in on Zelgadis, who was still picking himself up after diving for the wall; it blocked the chimera from Amelia and Gareth. Zel held up his sword, warding it off; the creatures were being more careful about leaving their crystal eyes open to attack, and it kept its head well up out of Zel's reach.   
A second golem charged Amelia, who stood innocently in front of Gareth. Just as it came close enough to lunge, Amelia put out a hand and yelled, "Stop!" The golem skidded to a halt, confused. "Mm-hm, right there's good-Aqua Create!" A spout of high-pressure water burst out of the rock beneath the golem, blasting it into the cieling. It didn't really damage the creature, just rattle it and slow it down.   
Zelgadis maneuvered the creature between himself and the lava, quietly measuring distance and forcing it back towards the flow, readying a spell. "Bomb di Wind!" A strong wind came up from behind him, blasting into the golem. It dug its claws into the ground, but was quickly pushed back into the lava, where it was finally destroyed. Before another golem could move into a position to attack him, he saw that he had a clear path to attack Darius himself. Zel charged; most mages weren't that good at physical combat, and if he could get close enough to attack Darius with the sword, he would be able to defeat him without much trouble.   
As soon as he thought he was close enough, he dove at Darius; true, the move would put him off-balance if he missed, but he was hoping to end the battle with one quick stroke. Darius managed to catch Zel's sword arm before he could complete the attack.   
Any sorceror worthy of the name could tell when a spell was being cast right under their nose; Zel noticed Darius's spell fast, and even recognized it. He had never seen that spell used in battle before, but that was only because it required having both hands on the target...Darius had a strong grip on his sword arm...which meant Zelgadis was in for a world of hurt.   
"Blast Wave!" The spell formed a short-range shockwave normally used to destroy barriers; it knocked Zelgadis straight back into the wall where the tunnel turned, hard enough to leave a spiderweb of cracks in the stone where he hit.   
"Mr. Zelgad-Aaagh!" In her panic to try and help Zelgadis, Amelia had turned her back to one of the golems; a mass of vines shot out, entangling her arm. Gareth cut clean through the vines, and they both retreated to the unconscious chimera.   
Gareth picked Zelgadis up and warded off the golem with his sword, backing towards the twenty-foot stretch of lava around the corner.   
"Amelia-we're gonna have to get outta here, there's no way we can win this!" Amelia nodded; they both turned and ran towards the lava stretch. Before Gareth could start hopping from rock to rock, Amelia cast a quick Raywing, lifting them across the lava to the other side faster than they could've jumped from rock to rock. They hit the ground running, Gareth leading the way through the tunnels and quickly leaving Darius and the golems in their dust. 

Now that Xelloss had noticed it, the dragon skeleton clacked back together and rose from its resting place slowly, as if it were unsteady after so many centuries of stillness.   
"Come to survey your handiwork, Demon?"   
Xelloss used the same cheerful, almost clueless-sounding tone he used with humans. "Oh, no, I wasn't even here! I was quite a ways north when this battle happened."   
The dragon-spectre studied him closely, then reared back with a rattling hiss. "Beastmaster!"   
"Bingo!" Okay, so technically that title belonged to Zelas Metallium, but the dragons had gotten it into their heads that it referred to him, and he felt no need to dissuade them of the notion.   
"You were the reason we lost the battle! You destroyed the others coming to help!"   
"Oh, really, you give me too much credit. You were simply outsmarted, that was all." The undead dragon's claws dug into the stone, leaving three-foot long scars. "I must say, it seemed that the only reason that war was a fair fight at all was that the Water Dragon King was stronger than the Demon King of the North; if not for that, it would've been an easy battle! And it certainly turned into one, once we levelled the playing field." The Mazoku had set up a field to weaken the Water Dragon King. The undead dragon facing Xelloss began making the most unusual dry, crackling hiss; the blue points of light in its empty eye sockets flared brighter. "Besides, your kind did most of our work for us when you killed the Ancient Dragons; after that, it was simply a matter of cleaning up." The growling hiss rose into a thin screech. "Oh, don't look at me like that...I don't know what you were told, but it was the gold dragons that wiped out the Ancients, not us." Xelloss was still using that casual, off-hand tone, and had yet to even open his eyes.   
"LIAR!!!!", it shrieked, and dust shook off of the stone walls and cieling.   
"Tisk tisk tisk...I haven't lied in a long, long time." It was true; Xelloss hadn't outright lied in centuries. He had, however, left things out and played plenty of logic games, proving that you could be misleading without lying. Plus, he was telling the total truth-the gold dragons had turned on the Ancient Dragons and wiped them out, in a series of atrocities that had impressed even the Mazoku.   
"DIE, XELLOSS!!!!", it roared. The creature still had a breath weapon, of sorts- a spray of light energy exploded from its mouth. Each of the small shards tore through Xelloss, leaving a hole or a gash. When the creature closed its jaws, expecting to see the Mazoku dissipate, it instead found him still standing there, eyes open. Granted, he bore a suspicious resemblence to swiss cheese, but he didn't act that badly injured.   
"That...actually...hurt." He sounded mildly surprised, but more annoyed than anything else. Just opening his eyes was a concession to the spectre's power; he avoided opening them around non-Mazoku, since it wouldn't take most humans long to notice that bright purple, slit-pupilled eyes weren't normal.   
Before the dragon could attack him again, a blaze of energy engulfed it from below, turning the center of the chamber into a maelstrom. When the light and dust settled, there was no sign the skeletal creature had ever been there. 

Martina had fallen into a pit, and was dragging through tunnels that seemed endless, but she had yet to give up. Her beloved Xelloss was in danger, and no mysterious thing was going to hurt him if she had anything to say about it! Her run had slowed to a limping walk, and she was scratched, bruised, and felt like whining. She'd just have to allow herself that after she rescued Xelloss.   
She heard the dragon's outburst; the first word left her wondering what was going on. The rest of it set her at a sprint again. No matter what that thing was, it was going to eat curses if it threatened Xelloss. 

Xelloss glanced down at himself. If the hole in his hand had been a problem, this was a catastrophe. He'd need at least three hours to regenerate all of this, and until then, he couldn't go anywhere near the humans he was travelling with without giving himself away!   
That was when he noticed two things at once; first, the sound of somebody scrambling through the tunnels he had just come through, and second, an intense, overprotective panic. Human panic. Just what he didn't need. Scanning the room, he found an alcove carved into the wall some twenty feet up. Levitating would take too much time; he dimension-shifted into the hiding hole in an instant, and made sure he couldn't be seen from the ground.   
"I don't care what you are, beast, but if you're threatening my Xelloss, you can face the wrath of the great Zoamel Gustav!!!" Martina stood, bruised and battered, in the entrance to the chamber, holding her bizarre medallion in the air.   
Oh, now that was the last thing he needed right now. It wasn't that he didn't like Martina; in fact, she was probably one of his favorite humans. She wasn't that successful, but she had the most wonderful ruthless tenacity, and complete dedication to a goal, which any Mazoku should find admirable. That same tenacity could be a problem; she had no clue what he really was, and wouldn't give up until she knew he was safe. In his condition, that could spell the end of his entire mission. He tried to just keep quiet and wait for her to go away.   
It took Martina a few seconds to realize that there was no sign of any monster, or of Xelloss, anywhere in the huge chamber. There were, however, long scars in the stone from some huge clawed thing, a very large scorched area around the scars, and many more spots of blackened, pitted rock spreading out across the room. It looked like there had been quite a battle. "Master Xelloss? Are you here?" She began to wonder if she was too late, but tried to avoid the horrid thought. "Master Xelloss?" Still no answer. She froze; here she was, trapped in this mountain, with Xelloss apparently annihilated by some monster, and nobody nearby able to do anything to help her except her hated enemy Lina Inverse! Where was Lina, anyway? She thought Xelloss had been travelling with Lina, but there was no sign of Lina here. The creature had just been referring to Xelloss, alone, so Lina hadn't been with him. That was the last straw; destroying Xoana was bad enough, but leaving Xelloss out alone to get killed by some monster was going past too far! "That does it, Lina, I'm not resting until you're dead!"   
Xelloss noticed that things seemed to be going from bad to worse. Lina had enough on her hands with the plant-mage; Martina going psycho trying to kill her wouldn't help things any. He had to talk Martina into leaving the chamber. If he sounded irritated or upset in any way, though, she wouldn't go away...he cleared his mind and pictured Amelia getting shoved off a cliff until he felt ready to speak.   
"Oh, come now, Miss Martina, is that really necessary?" Martina began looking around the room wildly, trying to find the source of the voice. "Master Xelloss? Are you alright? Where are you?"   
"I'm fine. There was a rather large creature here, very unfriendly, and the battle did get a little hairy...I'm not exactly presentable right now, so I'd prefer just staying here for a while until I recover. I'll be good as new soon enough."   
"Oh, Master Xelloss, I should've known you could taken care of that monster! Are you sure you don't want to come out here?"   
"Quite sure. I'll be fine, don't worry." It was clear it would take a bit more to get rid of her. He almost hated to do this, but he couldn't think of any other way... "I think Lina may be having a bit of trouble, though. She was facing off against a fairly dangerous opponent, and could use some help. Would you mind finding out where she is for me? She took the other fork, back where you turned left to find me." He feigned ignorance of any slip or mistake in the request.   
"Whatever you say, Master Xelloss!" Martina was making one of the goofiest "absolute infatuation" faces Xelloss had ever seen. She turned and ran out of the chamber back into the tunnel. Once she was out of earshot, she began cackling to herself quietly. Xelloss had only told her to find Lina, but this time he had apparently forgotten to tell Martina not to terrorize Lina! If Lina was in trouble, then Martina could take advantage of it to get her revenge, and Xelloss had just handed her the perfect chance.   
Martina had underestimated how far Xelloss could hear her. While he somewhat enjoyed her plotting, he only hoped she kept up her previous pathetic record. Maybe it hadn't been such an idea to give her carte blanc to torment Lina, but he had to get rid of Martina, and once he could go out in public again, he'd be sure to catch up and make sure Martina hadn't done too much damage. 

Lina and Gourry had come to another fork. Lina quietly considered splitting up again, but that would only be playing into Darius's hands; for safety's sake, she'd rather not split the group up any more. If they took the wrong fork, they could be wandering for hours, leaving Zel and Amelia to whatever Darius had planned for them.   
"Uh, Lina...which way do we go?"   
"Quiet, Gourry, I'm thinking." She needed to be sure; the only thing she could think of was a Search spell. Using that to search for a living being was unreliable, and would likely turn up nothing; you had to know the exact magical signature of whatever you were looking for, and the signature of a living being varied with time and condition enough to make the spell useless. It was only really useful to find magic items whose signature was known. Lina thought of Zel's sword; she knew that pretty well, and barring some incredible disaster, it would be with Zel. Plus, it wasn't that difficult a spell. It was normally cast using a crystal ball, but she didn't have one with her, so she'd have to improvise a little.   
Lina knelt a few feet back from the crossroads, and scratched a circle in the cavern floor with her blade. She then pulled a small amulet out of her pocket and dangled it over the center of the circle. Concentrating on Zel's sword, she repeated, "You who sail the seas of the astral plane, reveal this shadow to me...", and watched the amulet. It didn't even twitch. That was strange; it should've pointed her right to him. Unless-if Zel were in a tough fight, he'd probably use Astral Vine to enchant his sword, changing its signature enough that the Search spell wouldn't find it without taking that into account. She tried it again, this time figuring in an Astral Vine spell.   
The amulet twitched once, then shot up into the air, pulling her hand toward the left fork.   
"Umm...Lina...is that good?"   
"Are you kidding? This means I can find Zel without a lot of scouring the entire maze! Come on, let's go!"   
As Lina pulled the amulet out of its little circle, it returned to normal. They passed several more forks and branches; every time, Lina re-cast the Search spell, and followed the amulet. At what was about the fifth or sixth fork, Gourry commented, "Uh, what exactly are you doing with that amulet?"   
"A search spell, to find Zel! I would've thought that would be obvious."   
"Oh, OK...it's just that, as often as you've been using that, I might learn it." Lina stared at Gourry for a moment, then cracked up laughing at the image of the big, brainless swordsman crouched over a circle in the dust, trying to cast a spell. "What? Did I say something funny?"   
"You...using magic..." She broke out laughing again.   
"Mr. Zelgad-AAGH!" Amelia's shriek sounded distant; she was quite a ways down the tunnel. It at least made the Search spell redundant. One instant, Lina was sprawled on the floor, laughing too hard to stand, while Gourry stood to one side trying to figure out what was wrong with her; the next, they were a good twenty feet down the tunnel, running as fast as they could.   
They quickly came to the chamber with the lava flow where the stand had been made, but there was no sign of Amelia, Zelgadis, or their attackers. Lina used a Raywing to carry both of them over the lava, and was about to follow the tunnel straight past the next lava flow, when she saw a familiar sword lying by the bend. It was fairly plain, with a blank gold-plated hilt; the blade had a soft red glow around it that was fading already. Even Gourry knew what that meant; Zel would never leave his sword behind, unless he were too injured to carry it.   
Lina carefully picked up Zel's sword and watched the Astral Vine dissipate. She stalked out into the center of the abandoned battlefield, and started yelling.   
"Alright, Darius, enough is enough! If you're going to get your revenge on me, then just come out and attack me,"; she held Zel's sword in the air. "but leave my friends out of this!" There was no answer, nor any sign of the vicious plant-mage.   
"Come on, Gourry; we've got to go rescue Zel and Amelia." Gourry followed Lina quietly; a dark silence had dropped over the pair. 

Gareth led Amelia straight to what looked like a dead end; before she could say anything, he dove right through the wall as if it weren't even there. Amelia held her breath and followed; the wall was only an illusion. They came out in a huge stone chamber, lit by lava flowing through emerald tubes in the cieling. There was space for multiple dragons in the tunnel, and on one wall was a relief of the battle between Ruby Eye Shabranigdu and Flare Dragon Cephied. In front of the relief was a solid emerald statue of the Water Dragon King. Under the statue's shadow was a shabby campsite that looked semi-permanent; the campsite spread between the statue and a huge dais.   
Gareth carefully laid Zelgadis near the "firepit" of the campsite. He had some dry wood stocked away, from his periodic scrambles through the forest, and used some of the wood, his sword blade, and a piece of old flint to start a small campfire. While he was lighting a fire, Amelia knelt next to Zelgadis. He was badly hurt, only barely alive. Amelia's specialty was spirit-shamanism and white magic, but this would take healing magic on the level of something Sylphiel would do. That gave Amelia an idea-when Lina had been in this kind of condition, Sylphiel had used a powerful Recovery spell to save her while Zelgadis, Amelia, and the others stalled her attacker. Amelia wasn't sure she could do the same, but it was worth a try.   
"Blessed, humble hand of God...Life and breath of mother Earth..." Gareth looked up; sure enough, small points of white light had appeared in the air near Amelia; as she continued the spell, an aura of white light grew around her. "Show your great compassion to Mr. Zelgadis, and deliver him back to us!" Amelia put one hand on Zel's shoulder, and the aura flowed from Amelia into Zelgadis, where it vanished. She didn't budge from his side, and the look of intense concern didn't fade quickly.   
Gareth didn't disturb Amelia while she waited for the spell to take effect. He poked at the small fire, and turned to stare up at the emerald statue. He had been living in the statue's shadow for two years now; when he first saw it, the first thing he thought of was the huge amount of valuable emerald that had gone into its making. Now, as it almost seemed to glow softly, he began to wonder if its value went deeper than the materials of its construction. This room that he had been living in had apparently been a shrine, and the entire dragon fortress was centered on it. The illusionary walls that hid every entrance had been there when he moved in, and had probably even been there since the deaths of the dragons a thousand years ago. The room, that had always seemed quiet to him, suddenly seemed terribly huge and terribly ancient, and the statue and relief took on a character of age and near-sentience that was unnerving. Since he had moved into the chamber, he had explored much of the old dragon complex, and had learned far more of cosmology from its reliefs than most werewolves would ever know. He had even once seen one of the stronger Mazoku poking into the mountain; a terrible, deadly creature, it had quickly been driven off by the wards and traps left behind by the dragons. His small conflict with Darius became trivial and meaningless when he considered the larger conflict, and realized that his sanctum was a place of safety against far more terrible things than a simple homicidal sorceror. He would probably never see the dragons that were his benefactors, or learn the whole story of their defeat so long ago, if he stayed hiding here in their haunted crypt. He didn't even know why the Mazoku hadn't taken over completely after slaughtering the dragons in the war; something had to be preventing them, or the world would be plagued by far greater terrors than the plants and spells Gareth hid from.   
His reverie was broken as the chimera finally stirred. Zelgadis winced and grimaced as he struggled to sit up, favoring his left shoulder. Amelia's worry vanished quickly, and she threw her arms around him and yelled, "Mr. Zelgadis! You're okay!"-since she was sitting to his left, she put pressure on the injured shoulder; it hurt more than Zel would've liked, and he tried to avoid crying out at the sudden pain. "Oops! Sorry, Mr. Zelgadis, I didn't even think of that-are you feeling alright?"   
"As well as can be expected, after being blasted into a wall." Zel felt the injured shoulder; some of the bones had actually been broken, a kind of injury he hadn't even risked in years.   
"You're lucky-if you'd been human, that probably would've killed you." Gareth's comment was meant to be encouraging; instead, it only rubbed it in for Zelgadis, whose main goal right now was to find a cure for the curse. "What? Did I say something wrong?"   
"Uh, Mr. Gareth...Mr. Zelgadis is trying to find a way to be human again, and he doesn't really like it when you point things like that out..." Amelia was trying to be as diplomatic as possible with Zel sitting right there.   
"You mean you weren't always that way? Could've fooled me; most mage's experiments come out looking like patchwork quilts, and I thought you were, well, you know, some other nonhuman race I had never heard of." Even Gareth wasn't quite sure if that was meant as a compliment or an apology.   
Zel's pained look turned into a scowl. "Gareth..quit while you're ahead."   
"Mr. Gareth? What is this place?" If asked, Amelia would've admitted that her first thought was changing the subject; still, she was curious.   
"This room? It's a part of the old dragon fortress that was built into the mountain. I think it was a shrine of some kind, although those reliefs and stuff are spread throughout the place. This chamber's guarded by illusions covering the entrances, and unless you stumble into them by accident like I did when I moved in here, you'd never know it was here. I live here, 'cuz it's the safest place in the mountain; every once in a while, one of the Mazoku from the rest of the range wanders in here to have a look around, but they've apparently never found this room. Plus, now that the mage twerp is wandering around the tunnels, he's not likely to find us here either, so we should be safe."   
"So until you came, the chamber had been empty like this for a thousand years?" Zel was getting his first look at the room; the carvings and statues were awe-inspiring, even without their incredible age.   
"Yep, near as I can figure. I guess I'm the first living thing to set foot in here since the dragons." Werewolves normally lived on the edge of civilization, and weren't exactly well educated or informed; they normally only had contact with others as bandits or lackeys for stronger evils. It was strange to see a werewolf, in full beast form, sitting so quietly in the center of the room; Gareth actually looked as awestruck as Zel, as if he were just really looking around the chamber for the first time. "I've been kinda wondering, since I started thinking about this place...how did that war end, anyway?"   
"The Mazoku destroyed the Water Dragon King, but were put into a stalemate when the Demon King of the North was left encased in ice, unable to leave that one mountain peak. The Dark Lords had put up a field to cut off the power of the dragons, isolating this part of the world, but in order to maintain the field, they couldn't travel very much. The dragons that fought against the Mazoku- the gold and ancient dragons-are basically extinct in this area, but the Mazoku haven't entirely recovered from the war either, so this section of the world has been going on in their shadow ever since the war. The only two real battles since then were Dirus's attack on the Demon King of the North, and a recent attempt to resurrect another fragment of Shabranigdu..." Zel trailed off in mid-sentence. Amelia kept her silence, and even Gareth realized that he didn't seem to want to think too hard about that last incident. Amelia hadn't been there, but she had heard about the battle from Lina and the others later. To Amelia's mind, Rezo probably hadn't been that bad at first; after all, he was known as the great humanitarian, Red Priest Rezo, and the reputation had to come from somewhere. However, even he hadn't been able to carry around that fragment of Shabranigdu without becoming corrupted by it. Her family may have some bad luck, but poor Zel-his own grandfather, Rezo, had turned him into a chimera and nearly started a second Resurrection War! No wonder he could be so depressed sometimes. 

Lina and Gourry came back into the main tunnel after their third attempt at finding Zel and Amelia had led them to a dead end. As they were walking, Gourry looked more and more confused, until finally he asked, "Lina? Why don't you just use that spell you used earlier to find them?"   
"I can't, Gourry, because that spell can only look for the magic signature of something; it doesn't work on people, only on items, and the only thing I had to look for was this!" She held Zel's sword out a bit.   
"Oh...so how do we find them?"   
"We search the tunnels, how else?"   
"We just seem to be running out of tunnels..." They were in the last area they hadn't searched.   
"Shoot! Not another dead end...where arey they, anyway?"   
"Maybe they found a tunnel we just didn't see."   
"Grrr...we've been over this entire maze, you dingbat! How could there be a tunnel we didn't...Gourry, you're a genius!"   
"Huh? I am?" That was the complete opposite of everything Lina had ever called him, and it left Gourry's fragile train of thought in a complete wreck.   
"Come on, let's go-they must've found some secret passage! I thought some of those dead ends looked a little suspicious." That actually hadn't been anywhere close to what Gourry had been thinking; he missed things all the time, and had truly thought they must've missed a tunnel.   
Lina took off at a run again, with Gourry quickly catching up to her. She scoured the tunnels systematically, looking for anything that could've been a trigger for a secret door. Finally, in one tunnel, she skimmed close over one of the dead ends. Finding nothing, she lashed out in frustration.   
"Oh, stupid maze, why can't the secret passage be-" She kicked the tunnel wall, or at least tried to; her foot went right through it as if it weren't even there. "Yes! An illusion!" She grabbed Gourry's arm and drug him through the illusion; he panicked, expecting to be slammed into the wall.   
"Miss Lina! Mr. Gourry!" Amelia jumped up at the sight of them. Gareth said, "Miss Lina?!", and hid behind one of the talons of the emerald Dragon King.   
"Good thing we found you two; I was starting to get worried! And is that...Gareth? What are you doing around here? I figured you'd have run away two years ago!"   
"I tried...but I kept getting attacked by the forest, so I hid out here after I found out the plants didn't like lava!" He gave up on hiding and came out.   
"Oh, and Zel-I believe you forgot something." Lina held his sword out to him. He started to accept it with his left hand, but a pain in his shoulder quickly convinced him otherwise; he switched hands and replaced the sword in its empty sheath. "You alright, Zel?"   
"Fine...I just think I broke something when I got hit with that spell."   
"Ow..." Lina winced in sympathy, and thought about how hard it was to hurt Zel. "Well, anyway, it's good to see you guys are pretty much intact."   
Gareth was staring at Lina and Gourry. "How did you two find this place?"   
"Simple! When we ran out of tunnels you guys could've disappeared down, Gourry here reminded me that there could be secret passages around, so we started looking for one. That illusory wall was good, but it wasn't enough to keep us out!"   
Zel nodded, looking a little amazed. "So Gourry thought to look for secret passages?" Any kind of an idea from Gourry was a major event.   
"Well, no...I just said there must be a tunnel we hadn't seen, and Lina figured out that you had gone through a secret door." Zel's amazement died; it was just normal Gourry stuff, having great ideas that he just didn't understand.   
"So where did you two disappear to?"   
"I wasn't watching where I was going, and fell into a shaft into these tunnels. I wandered for a while, then my Lighting spell went out, and I was face to face with the one who's been controlling the plants around here. He had a mantrap and several golems with him, and I wound up on the run from him until I ran into Amelia and Gareth. We tried to make a stand, and managed to destroy a few of the golems, but then he surprised me with a spell. I woke up here. I assume Amelia must've gotten separated in a similiar way."   
"Well, actually-I wandered off into the forest, and when I realized I had gotten separated, I got ambushed by a bunch of those golems. I had to get away into the river, and got swept down into the tunnels where it goes underground. Mr. Gareth rescued me from one of the golems that had followed me into the water, and we started looking for you together. While we were looking for a safe way back into the forest, we ran into Mr. Zelgadis. After he got hurt by that spell, Mr. Gareth carried him, and led me here. Oh, and before we ran into Mr. Zelgadis, we found somebody who said he's been living around here for a while; I tried to find out what had happened here, but both Mr. Feris and Mr. Gareth told two different stories, and I wanted to know if you could clear up what happened."   
"Yes, I was wondering the same thing...and wasn't Xelloss with you earlier?"   
"Well, to start with, Xelloss was with us, but we split up at the first fork to find you guys. I don't know where he is know. As for two years ago, I was carrying a message; I got lost and found myself in Hickory. The mayor hired me to deal with some bandits that were living out here, and sent Feris as a guide. When we got there, the bandits had been wiped out except for Gareth. We weren't in the bandits' old base long when Darius attacked us; Feris ran away, and I thought we killed Darius. We went deeper into the forest, looking to destroy the main colony of the mantraps; after we found them, we came back into town, and Feris had conviced the Mayor that we were working for the bandits! Gareth ran away when they started shooting arrows at us, and we figured it wasn't worth arguing- we didn't know Darius was still alive- so we just went ahead with our original mission. If the archers hadn't started shooting at us, we probably would've chased down Gareth."   
Zel gave her a very strange look, then said, "Why did you go from saying 'I' to saying 'we'?" Gareth commented, "Yeah, sounds like you're trying to cut your crazy partner out of the story. She did help some, even if her spells did usually almost kill us too."   
"Alright, alright, I had a partner back then. She was a nut. She helped me beat Darius. We broke up a while ago, and I thankfully haven't seen her for a couple years. Okay?"   
Amelia was distressed; the conversation hadn't cleared anything up. "Well, Mr. Gareth and Mr. Feris were arguing-Mr. Gareth said that Mr. Feris was working with that evil sorceror, and Mr. Feris said he didn't know anything about it."   
"Feris was lying. He'd known Darius since they were kids, and he certainly knew Darius was out there. In fact, he was probably so upset to see us just because he knew we'd wind up fighting Darius again." Amelia nodded, she had finally gotten her explanation. Feris had lied to her, and then slipped off. He had probably even been spying on them for Darius.   
"Now that we're all together-we can't just sit here, we've got to go stop this Darius guy, before he does any more damage!" Amelia was in full-tilt "Psycho Justice Girl" mode.   
"But what about Zelgadis? He's not looking too well." Gourry had been watching Zel try to work around his injured shoulder.   
"I can take care of myself." Zel set to work making a makeshift sling to hold his arm still. So long as he didn't do anything stupid, he would be able to avoid injuring it further, or letting it get in his way.   
Gareth watched them getting ready to chase down Darius. They seemed ready to take on anything. If they failed, he'd be stuck here running from Darius; one day, he'd probably slip up and get caught. He could hide here and wait until the battle was over, then duck out and test his luck. He leaned against the statue, and glanced up at it, and the relief behind it. The dragons had died here, cornered and ambushed. The Mazoku had sieged them here; the dragons had hidden here, until they were finally overwhelmed by the Mazoku. He wondered if the battle would've gone differently if the dragons had tried to fight against the Mazoku, instead of staying inside the mountain waiting for the inevitable. He was hiding in the mountain, the same way the dragons had. Gareth wondered how long it would take Darius to find the secret passages; Lina and Gourry had found them pretty easily. Now that Darius had decided to hunt him even into the tunnels, it was only a matter of time before Darius tracked him down; then, Gareth would truly be between the frying pan and the fire, since the only other escape route was further into the mountains, into the areas held by the Mazoku.   
Lina walked over to him. "Listen, Gareth, this is gonna be some battle; we're gonna fight Darius, even if we have to do it on his own turf, in the forest. I don't want to have to worry about you running away and getting caught by vines or anything, so if you're gonna cut and run on us again, just stay here. When we're through beating Darius, we'll come back down here and get you."   
"Rrrrrrr....no. I'll go. I can't keep running like this. If I keep hiding out here, sooner or later, he's gonna find me, and he's gonna kill me; even if we lose, it'll just mean me getting killed sooner rather than later. If I go out there with you guys, I'll have a better chance than if I just stay down here and hide out, so I'm gonna go fight with you. If somebody gets really hurt, I know this area, and I can get them out of Darius's reach so you don't have to worry, and you can keep fighting. And...I'll help cover Zelgadis."   
Lina smiled. "We'll be glad to have you with us. Just don't change your mind about running when things get bad out there."   
They returned to the rest of the group, who were waiting by the passage. Zel watched Gareth follow Lina. "So you're coming with us?"   
"Yeah...you were right back there, if I just keep running, I'm gonna get nowhere."   
"That's it, Mr. Gareth, stand up to that nasty sorceror!" He accepted Amelia's encouragement with a forced, nervous smile; Amelia scared him sometimes. 


	5. WAR! The Battle at Darius's Lair!

Forest King, Chapter 4   
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I don't mean to abuse Zelgadis, really...And Xelloss, well, that's pretty much what he's like when he starts dropping the act.   
******************   
After they were out in the tunnels, Zelgadis pointed out that they had no idea where to look for Darius.   
Lina stopped in the lead. "Yeah...well, he was chasing you guys, right? Gourry and I didn't see him anywhere in the tunnels, and we covered this entire area, so he's probably back out in the forest...but we could've missed him." Gourry said, "Too bad that spell you used to track Zelgadis won't work on Darius."   
"Yeah, that'd really make things easier. But, I'd have to have some kind of a magic item I know pretty well to track him...and he's got those golems with him, and those crystals are enchanted objects! Thanks, Gourry! Come on, it'll be easier to find when we're out of the tunnels a little." Gourry blinked in confusion. "Huh? What'd I say?"   
"Rrr, there's only one easy way back out to the forest, and when Amelia and I tried to go out that way, it was grown over by vines."   
"No problem! Take me to it, and we'll be out of here in no time!"   
Gareth led them to the tunnel entrance, where the vines had actually gotten thicker since they had last been there. "Lina, are you sure you can get us through here?"   
"Of course-Fireball!" The explosion as the fireball hit the vines incinerated all of them, easily leaving the passage cleared. They went maybe twenty feet out of the tunnel, then Lina motioned for them to stop and cast another Search, this time focusing on the eyes of the golems. The amulet tried to twitch many different directions, then picked the place with the most things matching the signature and pointed out that way.   
"Got him! Hey, Gareth, isn't that direction where we found the main colony of mantraps two years ago? Figures he'd make that his base."   
They didn't get very far before the vines and overgrowth became a problem. Gareth and Gourry drew their swords and started hacking at it, but after a while, the vines thickened so badly that they may as well not have been moving at all. Zelgadis drew his sword one-handed and added his own attempts; they started creeping forward again. 

Darius noticed their passage; it wasn't like he could actually see them, but from the forest, he could feel them hacking through the overgrowth heading towards his lair. He had a real battle on his hands now. Lina was always a formidable enemy, even by herself, but now she had help; the little girl could be hazardous if she wasn't dealt with quickly, and even injured the chimera could be a problem. The swordsman was a wild card, someone Darius had never seen in action. He didn't know if Gareth was with them or not; the spineless coward was probably hiding out in the tunnels, in whatever hidden chamber he had found. Even if he was with them, he wouldn't be much trouble. Darius was slightly worried about the last one of Lina's companions, that bizarre wanderer who had shown up for such a short time. He was the other wild card, and the one that could be a real danger.   
He was so busy keeping track of their slow passage through the forest that he didn't notice Feris coming up behind him until Feris said something.   
"I take it you're getting ready for a battle royale...I wish there was something I could do to prevent this, but you've gotten them really ticked off now, and they're not going to go away until they're sure you're dead."   
"I can take care of them."   
"I wouldn't be so sure. Lina's reputation has only gotten worse since she last came here; I heard something about her defeating a fragment of Shabranigdu! If she can do that, how do you expect to defeat her?"   
"Fighting a powerful Mazoku is one thing. Fighting the very forest around her is quite another. I think I can handle her, if I'm more careful than I was two years ago."   
"She's got all her companions with her except that peculiar wandering priest; and the werewolf's joined them. Seems he's decided that he's not going to run anymore."   
"They've already tried to make a stand once, and it was a rout. Just because there's two more of them this time, I'm not giving up before the battle even starts."   
"Oh, well, if you're not going to change your mind...I'll be around. Just tell me that, when they're about to win and you're going to get killed...that you'll try to get away and leave here, go somewhere else, and stay out of their way."   
"That won't be necessary."   
Feris shook his head and walked away. Ever since the bandits had attacked that first time, Darius had gotten further and further away; now Feris wasn't even sure he knew him anymore. He didn't agree with the vicious way Darius defended his territory, but he was the only human Darius had left. If he left, Darius's downward spiral would just speed up; he couldn't abandon Darius. The most he could hope for was to just not get drug along and destroyed when Darius's reach finally exceeded his grasp. For all his attempts to talk Darius out of fighting Lina, he wasn't sure Lina could win; Darius had learned his lesson about direct confrontations. If he could avoid getting seen by Lina and the others, he could bring the entire forest to bear on them and not risk getting caught by a spell; if he were careful, Lina and the others probably wouldn't stand a chance. 

They didn't get much closer to Darius when the forest finally decided to do something about them. The vines they had been hacking away took revenge; a group of slashed vines that they had passed entangled Lina swiftly, acting like a horde of constrictor snakes. Lina cried out, and Gourry turned to attack them, but as he turned, the vines he had been hacking at shot out and grabbed his sword arm. Another mass of vines had attacked Zelgadis, and Gareth was fighting to free the chimera. Amelia was dodging a set of vines that were coming after her. Just when things really started looking bad, they got worse.   
"Having some trouble, Lina Inverse?" Martina stood a bit back up the path behind them, looking completely smug with herself.   
"Oh, no, Martina...you're the last thing I need right now...", Lina muttered. "Why don't you go pray to Zoaner-whatsit or something and leave me alone?"   
"Wha? How dare you mock the great dark lord, Zoamel Gustav! You'll pay for that, and for what you did to my kingdom, Lina Inverse!" Martina scanned the area. She couldn't cast a proper curse without drawing a magic circle around Lina, but with those vines everywhere, that was out of the question. She didn't even notice the golem hiding back off the path, watching everything. With it there, Darius could see through it, and never needed to get close to them.   
Martina walked right up in front of Lina; the vines were leaving her alone. Darius didn't mind Martina trying to make his job easier. "I take it my curses have finally caught up with you."   
"What the-you're taking credit for this mess? Sorry, Martina, but I know full well what's happening here, and if you stick around, Darius is gonna squash you, so just leave us alone and let us deal with him!"   
"Ha, denial. You just don't want to admit that I'm finally getting to see you destroyed by my curses."   
"Now Miss Martina, it's not fair to pick on Lina while she's immobilized like that." Martina stopped in shock, and instantly got the goofiest look as she turned and asked, "Master Xelloss? You've finally caught up with us?"   
"Yes, I've recovered from that battle earlier, and decided to come and give Lina a hand." Martina twitched slightly. "Now you just leave Lina alone and let her deal with this problem, alright, Miss Martina?"   
"Whatever you say, Master Xelloss!" Drat. Now she couldn't terrorize Lina, or take advantage of Lina's predicament.   
A set of flaming spheres appeared above and slightly behind Xelloss; they shot out, freeing Lina. Lina immediately set about with a Fireball to free the rest of the group. While the forest was recovering, Lina stepped out in front of her companions. If they were going to get to Darius, she'd have to resort to drastic measures.   
"Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows..." The roots below them started pulling free to attack them; Gourry got up behind Lina and began cutting off any root that came too close to her, while Gareth, Zel, and Amelia closed together in a circle to fend off the roots. Xelloss had put up a small circle of flames around himself and Martina, who was clinging to him. "Buried in the stream of time is where your power grows..." The golem watched quietly in the shadows. It almost sounded like the Dragon Slave, and the same effects were starting around Lina, but it was much shorter than the incantation she had used before... "In thy great name, I pledge myself to Darkness! May the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess!" Oh, yeah, that was the Dragon Slave. The golem ducked between Xelloss and Gareth, charging towards Lina. Gourry stood between it and Lina.   
"Dragon Slave!" The spell exploded forward, cutting a swath the size of a small town out of the forest valley. Gourry lashed out at the golem, slashing at its head; he cut the crystals clean in two, and the golem disintigrated. Xelloss's ring of fire spread out suddenly, burning away the roots while discreetly avoiding the people. Once the roots stopped their attack, the ring of fire vanished. Gourry watched this, and added the fact that every other sorceror except Xelloss used incantations for spells to his list of "Wierd Things About Xelloss"; it went right under the comment of "anybody seeing this would know I'm not human, and if Lina sees it, she'll know exactly what I am...", and the fact that Xelloss, who claimed to be a priest, didn't use any healing spells on his hand, along with many earlier incidents of Xelloss acting strange, vanishing into thin air, appearing out of nowhere, and otherwise being wierd.   
Lina looked out across the destruction. The spell hadn't quite made it to Darius's lair, so they'd still have to put up with some harassment, but at least now they could get there without being attacked by the forest so badly. 

Crossing the crater made by Lina's Dragon Slave was much easier than hacking through the forest. Even when they came out the other side of the crater into the forest again, there still wasn't an assault of vines like before; it quickly became clear why when several small vines shot out and entwined Xelloss. The vines began a tug-of-war with Martina, who was yelling at them the whole time to let go of her beloved Xelloss. The mantrap's jaws came forward and almost closed around Xelloss's arm; but before it could bite down, Gareth had cut the jaws off at the stalk, and moved on to the vines. As more of the small vines came out of the forest, they realized that there were mantraps everywhere in this stretch of forest; it was as if Darius had called every mantrap in the forest to build a buffer between him and Lina's group.   
They pulled together into a small ring, fighting off mantrap vines from every direction. Then Lina snarled, "Enough of this...Raywing!", and carried them right over the army of mantraps towards the clearing. She scanned it, and picked a nice outcropping where her Dragon Slave two years ago had built a rocky area that stuck out over the clearing, where the mantraps couldn't go.   
The clearing had become a tangled tower of trees, mantraps, vines, and plants grown together. Darius had built a rather spectacular hideout out of the living forest; from above, or a distance, it would simply look like a hill of some kind under the forest. From this close, however, it was clear that he had built a fortress here.   
"I hope you didn't expect all those little diversions to slow us down, Darius-and I really hope you don't think we're dumb enough to come up into that little tower of yours!"   
"I never expected you to...you've turned out to be more of a problem than I thought you would be." Lina immediately scanned the side of the tower for the source of the voice, and was disappointed to see a golem perched on a balcony of branches; he was using a spell to speak through the golem.   
"You've become more of a recluse since I last saw you."   
"I know better than to make myself a target...I'll be; the spineless dog actually decided to come with you."   
"I'm not running from you anymore! Two years of hiding is enough!" Gareth tried to sound brave, but he was carefully standing in the center of the group, keeping Lina and Gourry between himself and the tower.   
"Ah, Lina, we may have a problem..." Xelloss was watching the forest behind them, where eight of the golems had come out, and a good fifteen more or so were still in the trees around them. Martina was clinging to his shoulder tightly, trying hard not to whimper; she had never seen anything like these things before! Zelgadis and Amelia were ready to fight whatever came at them from either the tower or the forest.   
Xelloss considered his options quickly. He never got into battles with Lina and the others; that would mean he'd have to do something obvious, which he was to avoid at all costs. He could easily dimension shift somewhere else, but with Martina clinging to him, he'd have to bring her too. Now that he thought about it, that might not be such a bad idea; here, Martina would only get in the way. He made sure nobody was watching him, and disappeared. It didn't take long for the others to notice Xelloss's absence. Gourry made a mental note to his earlier list- "Disappears into thin air, without any obvious escape routes". Zel and Amelia closed the gap where Xelloss and Martina had been. 

Xelloss had teleported back into the chamber where he had fought the dragon spectre. Martina was initially confused.   
"How'd we get here?"   
"Well, I think Lina and the others can handle this, so I decided we may as well leave this up to them. You would've only gotten hurt there, so I brought you along."   
"You mean you took me out of there so I wouldn't get hurt?" Martina was getting that look again. "Oh, Master Xelloss, you've saved me again!" She threw her arms around him, putting him off-balance for a moment. 

The tower itself began flowing up the side of the crater towards Lina and Gourry. Zel, Gareth, and Amelia had their hands full fighting off the golems; Zel had cast another Astral Vine, and was fighting as well as he could one-handed. Amelia was slinging spells around as fast as she could, trying to take down a golem with each hit; she didn't always succeed. Gareth tried to make things easier on them; he couldn't destroy the golems himself, but he could certainly try to distract the golems and take some of the pressure off of them.   
Lina was throwing fireballs down the slope at the wave of branches and vines coming up at her, and Gourry had activated the Sword of Light; he was waiting and ready for it to come within range. Each of Lina's fireballs took out a large clump of plant matter, but there was so much to the tower that she only succeeded in slowing it down. Before long, it was flowing up over the outcropping. Lina had to take it out, and take it out quick; Gourry was hard pressed to fend off the mass of plants. She didn't dare look back to check on the others.   
"Darkness beyond twilight, Cri-aaagh!" A large clump had snuck up the other side around Gourry and engulfed Lina.   
"Lina!" Gourry wheeled, suddenly ferocious, and started slashing away at the vines around Lina with no regard for the other group coming up behind him.   
Back down the outcropping, things were going just as bad. One of the golems had overwhelmed Zelgadis, pinning him under one claw with vines entangling him completely. Gareth was doing his best to fight it off of the chimera, but it was slashing at him, and had rearranged its limbs to bring a decent set of claws to bear on the werewolf. Amelia was surrounded, trying to fight off four at once.   
Feris watched the tide of the battle turn from a hiding place in a tree some distance away. They had done better than he had expected, but in the end, it was like Darius had said; fighting a powerful Mazoku was very different from fighting the very forest around you. He had never been there before when Darius had killed someone; he usually warned them, then went somewhere else. Darius was more vicious than he had thought. Even the old bandit was putting up one heck of a fight, trying vainly to save his new, inhuman comrade.   
Feris was standing by Darius to keep him from turning into more of a monster. Watching the battle, Feris wondered how much further Darius had to fall. The four golems attacking the crazy girl finally got the better of her, as one of them jumped her from behind. Feris decided he had enough.   
Amelia was struggling to free herself from the mass of vines and claws when a shape dropped out of the forest, fighting through the clump of golems with two long daggers at once. Feris had the element of surprise, and managed to free Amelia.   
The golem that had Zel pinned tore Gareth's sword away from him; the werewolf resorted to claws and fangs, tearing into it in a rage. The vines behind Gourry ensnared him and started pulling him back, away from Lina. Lina realized that she had one chance to get out of here. Before the vines managed to get a good stranglehold, she gasped out, "Bram Fang!" A small arrow of wind zipped around her neck, cutting off the vines. Lina gathered her concentration for one last-ditch trick. "Fireball!" She concentrated, and the small ball of flames didn't appear between her entangled hands, but rather behind her, and behind the mass of plants that was holding her. She carefully brought it closer to the plants, so that it would free her without doing any real harm to her. "Break!" It exploded, burning away the plants holding her. She threw another fireball at the clump attacking Gourry.   
"Gourry-hold out here, I have an idea!" The plants wouldn't let her start a Dragon Slave if she had her feet on the ground, so she'd need drastic measures. "Levitation!" She got a good distance up in the air, so that she was looking slightly down at the tower and was out of its easy reach. She looked down, and was shocked to see Feris fighting along side Amelia, holding off the golems there. Gareth was tearing through another golem with bare fangs and claws, and gave Zel enough space to use his own sword to cut free of the vines.   
They could hold out for a minute, but she had to take down the main problem. Darius was somewhere inside that tower, and if he died, all the other spells would fail. This time, it couldn't reach her to interrupt her incantation. "Darkness beyond twilight, crimson beyond blood that flows-" Normally, the energy ribbons that came up at this time would come out of the ground; instead, they formed a sphere around her, as a small ball of light formed between her hands. She had to keep absolute control, or the wind that came up because of the incantation would affect her levitation. "Buried in the stream of time..." she could afford to cut corners there. "In thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness-may the fools who stand before me be destroyed by the power you and I possess! Dragon Slave!" The ball of light exploded down at the tower; Gourry ran towards the forest, and the others quickly joined him. It took all of Lina's concentration to keep from being blown backwards by the recoil, a problem she didn't have with her feet on the ground. The tower was incinerated, and the crater from two years ago was made a good thirty feet deeper. As the dust cleared, the golems began to fall apart, inert as the spell animating them died. Drained by the stress of maintaining two spells at once, especially one as powerful as the Dragon Slave, Lina's Levitation almost failed; all she could really do was slow her fall slightly. Gourry darted out of the forest to the edge of the clearing, catching her by the wrist as the spell died completely, and pulled her up.   
"Miss Lina, you did it! Justice prevails again!" Every once in a while, Amelia's Justice shtick didn't really bother her companions; this was one of those rare times. Gareth was actually starting to look like the ferocious werewolf of stories, even if the ichor covering him was only plant sap. Lina tried not to make any jokes about him standing next to Zel; the last time Zelgadis had worked with a werewolf was Dilgear, the almost unkillable werewolf/troll hybrid that only worked with him while he worked for Rezo. Zelgadis dispelled his Astral Vine himself.   
Gourry stopped by the edge of the forest. "Not to break the mood or anything..but has anybody seen Xelloss and Martina?" Gareth shrugged. "Ah, they're probably hiding out back in the mountain, staying out of the way; should we go fetch them?" Amelia added, "And while we're at it...I think Mr. Feris left again." Zel said, "I think we should let him go. He probably doesn't feel much like talking right now, and he can take care of himself." They skirted the edge of the pit created by Lina's last Dragon Slave, and went from there back into the crater made by the earlier Dragon Slave. Backtracking, they found that the overgrowth was still there, although not so belligerent as before. They stopped at the tunnel entrance.   
Lina thought for a minute. "Xelloss is probably gawking around the old dragon ruins. Hey, Wolf-Boy, what's the fastest way to those ruins?"   
"Through the shrine, back the way we came." They took a slightly more leisurely pace through the tunnels, passing through the illusory walls and the shrine without a second thought. When they came out in the main ruins, Gareth waved for silence. If he listened hard in beast form, he could hear anything in these ruins; and sure enough, Xelloss was talking off in the ruins. "Come on, I can find them!" They chased after Gareth, who was stopping now and then like an overgrown search dog, following the sound of their voices.   
He almost scared Martina when he came scrambling around a corner and yelled, "Found them!" Xelloss was in the middle of explaining one of the elaborate reliefs to Martina, but cut off his description as the rest of the group caught up. They were all scratched, bruised, and dirtied; everybody but Zel was bleeding slightly from numerous small thorn cuts.   
"Ah, I see the battle went well! I hardly expected any less, after what happened in Seillune."   
Zelgadis glared at him. "And where were you, anyway? After that trick you pulled with the roots earlier, we could've used your help."   
"Miss Martina wouldn't have been much help, and would only have gotten hurt, so I decided to take her out of harm's way so you wouldn't have to worry about her."   
Lina put a hand on Zel's unhurt shoulder. "Leave it, Zel. He always does this, remember? Anyway, what have you two been up to while we were out there fighting?"   
"Master Xelloss was explaining all these ancient reliefs to me."   
"Yes...it's just curious...I have yet to see a relief of the battle between Cephied and Shabranigdu; it's very odd. I've found just about every other major story from before the Resurrection War except that one."   
Gareth grinned. "Oh, that one's in the shrine."   
"The...shrine?" Xelloss had never heard of any shrine in this mountain; there was something here his kind hadn't found yet.   
"Yeah, I was living there when I hid out here. The fastest way out's through there, too, so if we're going to head back for town, we'll cut right through there!"   
"Ah. Perhaps what Lina came here for will be in there." A distinctly jealous look crossed Martina's face.   
"Nope. Sorry to disappoint, Xelloss, but the dragons didn't leave anything behind I could use. It's all traps, wards, and illusions; I need a weapon, not a wall."   
They went back through the shrine. As he entered the shrine, Xelloss commented, "Ingenious! A simple illusion of a wall-no wonder the Mazoku here have never found this place; they would never think to look for something so simple!" He noticed one other thing as he entered the shrine. The mountain's hatred took a turn; entering the shrine had been the last straw. It was going to do everything it could to destroy him without harming the ruins themselves.   
Gareth picked up some things he had kept in the shrine, tying up his bedroll and stuff into a bundle he could carry with him; then they went on. However, as they left the shrine and entered the normal tunnels, a huge rumble passed through the mountain. Nothing more came of it, until another tremor hit just as they left the tunnels. Xelloss paused. "Oh dear... I think it's going to erupt!" They all froze. Lina turned slowly; sure enough, a thick black plume was coming from the crater of the volcano.   
"Aw, crap crap crap-Raywing!" She picked up the whole group and carried them across the tops of the trees as the top of the volcano exploded, lava flowing every direction out of the cone. Pieces of rock and molten lava were thrown out everywhere by the blast, and the lava began burning through the forest. One thing was for sure; even if Darius had somehow lived, and somehow survived the lava, there wouldn't be a forest left for him to mess with. Several of the thrown rocks clipped past the Raywing bubble, and Lina had to move the spell fast to dodge a half-molten stone bigger than she was. Looking back, Xelloss noted that most of the mountain had been destroyed in its own explosion, except the area with the ruins. The way the lava was flowing, it would cool soon, sealing off the ruins from this direction; there was a slim chance that there would still be some tunnels connecting them with the rest of the Kataart range. Only Mazoku would ever get back into those ruins now.   
Lina carried the Raywing spell out to the edge of the forest, not quite in town but close. Gareth made a conscious effort to force himself back into human form as they landed.   
Lina turned to face Gareth. "Geez, what happened there? I thought the dragons had wards on the mountain!"   
"Some stupid Mazoku must've gone somewhere they shouldn't."   
Only Gourry noticed the way Xelloss suddenly fidgeted and looked off at the horizon innocently as Gareth said that. He added it to the list of puzzle pieces, which suddenly fell together. Xelloss had to be a Mazoku. Gourry thought about mentioning this to the rest of the group, and considered their reactions; Lina would be scrambling to figure out why a Mazoku like Xelloss was tailing them, and would probably be pretty upset. Amelia would be absolutely thrown for a loop, and would start pestering Xelloss. Zelgadis would just take it as another reason to hate Xelloss. Martina, who knew how she'd react. In short, they'd probably wind up with a lot of confusion on their hands. It would be easier if he just kept quiet and kept an eye on Xelloss. Gourry was the one with the Sword of Light, after all, and as long as he kept an eye on Xelloss, if the Mazoku tried anything, Gourry would see it coming, and with the Sword, he could hold Xelloss off until the others figured out what was going on. Besides, saying something would just make things get complicated, and when things got complicated, it made Gourry's head hurt.   
It was a soot-covered, ash-dusted, scratched, battered crew that pulled into town as the sun began to set; they had been out of town for a full two days, and nobody in town expected to see any of them alive again. They drug back into the inn. The innkeep was clearly shocked to see them.   
"You're alive! What happened out there? Did you find out what happened to Hickory?"   
"Later. Right now, I just want a bath, a meal, and a room..and I'll bet everybody else is up for that too." There were nods and small agreements all around, except for Xelloss, who was staying back a few feet from the group, still brushing ash and soot off of himself. A rumbling growl from Lina's stomach shocked the innkeep and Gareth, but the rest of her group had grown used to it; Amelia had even been wondering when not eating for two days was going to catch up to Miss Lina. Lina laughed nervously, and asked if the meal could be taken to the bath. The innkeep stared at them incredulously for a minute. Then he decided he didn't want to argue with anyone who could take on Cocytus and the forest and win. 

During the night, Lina and Gourry just about ate the innkeep out of house and home. Xelloss was his usual secretive self for the evening, although Martina tried to tail him as much as possible. Amelia, Zelgadis, and Gareth took turns explaining to the innkeep and a gaggle of residents exactly what had been going on out in the forest, occasionally arguing and interrupting one another; after that was done, Amelia and Zel explained their current plight, with Gaav, to Gareth. Feris drug in around midnight, and told the innkeep to free up his room.   
The next morning, Feris waited, hidden, at a fork in the road at the south side of town. Gareth stayed with them as far as the fork; when they paused there, he stepped a bit away and cleared his throat.   
"Listen, you guys know what's going on, and I don't...but I'd like to find out. So, I'm gonna go off on my own. I've been living like a bandit all my life, but living in those ruins got me thinking. I'd like to know a bit more about the big things that have been going on in this world. I'd also like to see if I can find any of the dragons still living around here; I owe them some thanks, 'cuz without that warded mountain, I never would've lived to stand up to Darius with you guys. So, I'm gonna be leaving here; whichever way you go, I'll take the other fork."   
Lina nodded. "'K; we're headed for some pretty rough territory ourselves, with Gaav out to kill me and all. Good luck, furface."   
Gareth walked off down the fork, as Lina and Amelia took turns shouting after him. "Keep fighting for Justice!" "Do anything stupid and I'll show up and fireball you!" "I hope you find those dragons!" "Try not to get eaten by anything, Wolf Boy!" "Thanks for saving me back there, and helping Mr. Zelgadis!" "Watch out for man-eating plants!" It continued until he rounded a bend out of sight.   
"Well, guys, too bad we didn't find anything useful...but at least we cleared up one old mess. Let's get back on track here, and get looking for another copy of the Claire Bible!" They headed off down the other fork. 

Feris stayed there until they were long gone. He had no reason to stick around; his last tie to this area had died with Darius, and there was nothing left except bad memories. He set off, not down either fork, but straight down the middle through the forest. Sooner or later, he'd find some purpose to his life; until then, he'd just have to keep walking. 


End file.
